...instructive though.
One needs to do a little Excel manipulation to do it, and be able to compare at utilize numbers, to see that this useless crap on average becomes landfill, on average, in about 15 years, meaning as with the case of the atmosphere, future generations will be screwed by our environmental wishful thinking.
The Danish Excel spreadsheets are here: Master Table of the Performance of Danish Wind Turbines
The much ballyhooed Danish wind program which inspired a lot of stupidity around the world, after strewing thousands upon thousands of leaky crap whirlygigs that depend on the disastrous lanthanide mines of Baotou, China, doesn't produce as much energy as a single nuclear plant built 30 years ago can produce.
Analysis of this data convinced me that my lack of hostility to the wind industry - which I may have held ten years ago - was inappropriate. The other thing that convinced me was the fact that we squandered a trillion bucks on this garbage in the last ten years alone (found here): Global "Investment" in so called "Renewable Energy".
A glance at the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide observatory might show what the environmental result of this massive squandering has done for climate change: Carbon Dioxide Trends at Mauna Loa
If one were to spend as much time with this data as I have over the last 20-30 years, one could see that a rate of 2.3 ppm per year, observed over the last ten years is the highest rate of decomposition of the atmosphere ever observed, meaning all the money squandered on so called "renewable energy" hasn't done shit even to slow the second derivative of the atmosphere's collapse.
Now, none of this is "peer reviewed;" it merely requires independent critical thinking to utilize.
This is also true of "peer reviewed" papers, with which I've spent the last 30 years reading about energy and the environment; it requires critical thinking as well.
This said, I'm happy to supply some links, some of which say that the environmental impact of the wind industry is inadequately evaluated, others suggesting what that impact is; and no, it's not zero, even ignoring the fact that the wind industry's main achievement is to increase rather than decrease reliance on unsustainable and frankly criminal dependence on dangerous natural gas.
Here's a nice current papers in the primary scientific literature which I have collected the full text from my files.
From very recent Chinese analysis of the wind portion of so called "renewable energy" (China faces the most health effects from the so called "renewable energy" scam:
Approach to Evaluate the Reliability of Offshore Wind Power Plants Considering Environmental Impact
Life cycle assessment and net energy analysis of offshore wind power systems (This one includes analysis of steel and concrete impacts, but is very weak on biological impacts.)
Bird Killer, Industrial Intruder or Clean Energy? Perceiving Risks to Ecosystem Services Due to an Offshore Wind Farm
Here's a whole book focusing on the biological implications on this stupid enthusiasm for this absurd and stupid scheme to fill the ocean and land with giant greasy tubines:
Wind Energy and Wildlife Interactions It was published just this year and it contains lots and lots and lots of "peer reviewed" references for anyone that's interested in the point. The text on the impact of German wind farms on the endangered red kites is illustrative.
Germany hosts more than 50% of the global breeding population of Red Kites (BirdLife International 2015), and hence should be responsible for protecting this species. A preliminary analysis (Mammen et al. 2013) showed that many adult Red Kites (older than two years) in Germany were killed by colliding with wind turbines (57 out of 63 cases). However, one and two-year-old Red Kites seemed less affected. Many of these collisions took place during the breeding season and caused both the loss of a partner and the loss of the brood. Bellebaum et al. (2013) modelled the numbers of wind turbine collisions of Red Kites in Brandenburg, Germany, and found that collisions were responsible for a 3.1% decline in the local post breeding population. They state that the mortality of Red Kites due to wind farms is approaching critical thresholds with respect to population growth.
Fuck the Kites; Wind Power is sexxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy.
One of the most moving references therein, is this one, a scientific paper written as a "plea."
The catchment area of wind farms for European bats: A plea for international regulations
Fuck the bats; Wind Power is sexxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyy.
This paper is open accessed:
Wind Farm Facilities in Germany Kill Noctule Bats from Near and Far
Turning to the marine area, on which tens of thousands of papers have been written, many in recent years, these scientists, mostly Marine Biologists complain that nobody has a clue about the effect of all this offshore development will have on the benthos, specifically those creatures that live on the sea floor, you know, like mussels:
Turning off the DRIP (‘Data-rich, information-poor’) – rationalising monitoring with a focus on marine renewable energy developments and the benthos
Even though we have no idea at all about the effect of the useless and ineffective wind industry (at least with respect to climate change), there's lots of cheering here for a pop news article about mussels.
It's a disgrace.
By the way, I've spent the last 30 years using much of my free time reading the primary scientific literature about energy and the environment. When Carbonite reports on the number of files on my computer it has backed up, the number is usually over 600,000 files. I would guess that at least 50-60% of the papers in my files relate to energy and the environment, with a large portion of that devoted to climate change. This includes an extensive number of papers related to the world's safest, and most sustainable form of energy, nuclear energy, which the neither the wind industry or the solar industry can match for low environmental and human impact.
At the time I started this kind of time intensive obsession, right after Chernobyl blew up, I was, a fan of the wind industry and the solar industry, up to even ten years ago. I was, in 1986, much to my personal disgrace, a critic and opponent of the nuclear industry.
I've changed my mind.
It's not like I did so with inattention. Quite to the contrary, I've invested lots and lots and lots of time, and if nothing else, my opinions, my
strong opinions are informed.
If you want "peer reviewed" stuff, one need not ask for it from a blogger on the internet. You can get it yourself. Google Scholar is your friend.
My conclusion after all this work is this: The wind industry and the solar industry are useless, and they are dangerous. I am embarrassed by the rote enthusiasm for these schemes on my end of the political spectrum, the left, the
environmental left. The number of recs this vague, and frankly misleading news item generated here is troubling to say the least.
The solar industry in particular, which after half a century of wild cheering can't even produce 2 of the 570 exajoules of energy generated and consumed by humanity is nothing more than a modern day asbestos, asbestos having been a "wonder material" generating wide enthusiasm in the mid 20th century, only to be a bane for our generation to clean up - if we
dare to clean it up.
The solar industry, which has already participated in causing 10% of the rice crop in Southern China to land above generally acceptable levels of safe cadmium, will prove for future generations, far more baleful, this after we also dumped trillions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in which they must live. We assume, rather criminally, that they will do what we ourselves were incompetent to do; this is the real meaning of all this "by 2050, or by 2080, or by 2100" crap put out by assholes like the poorly educated bourgeois brats at say, Greenpeace. It's not going to happen; they are likely to live in a long running disaster movie and will lack the resources to help themselves. The planet will be a giant Puerto Rico, circa 2017.
Future generations may not forgive us; personally, I don't think they should. The lies we told ourselves will bare no expiation of our place in history, which may be recorded as the "worst generation. Ever."
Have a nice Sunday evening.
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