If I took the time to respond to every misguided or uninformed opinion about wind energy that I come across, I wouldn’t much time for left for anything else. However once and a while there is an article that is so biased and off the mark that I feel an obligation to respond. Bruce Wark’s recent “Blow Job” cover story in The Coast this week is one such article.
The premise behind this article is that the Nova Scotia is ignoring negative health impacts of wind turbines and questions the benefits of wind energy with respect to its “green” attributes. In discussing the health impacts he reviews information from the existing Pubnico, Nova Scotia and Mars Hill, Maine Wind Farms, as well as concerns over the soon to be built Glen Dhu wind farm in Pictou County. In discussing whether wind energy is even “green” at all, he infers that the intermittent nature of wind energy somehow prevents the energy produced from offsetting fossil fuel sources.
I take issue with Bruce Wark on both of these fronts, and I explain why below. I also feel that the issues of Economics and Energy Security have been completely missed in his assessment of this industry in Nova Scotia, which I also discuss below.
Health Impacts and Aesthetics
The wind makes noise. The wind makes noise when it encounters buildings, trees, and even itself, and wind turbines are no different. The good thing is that noise is very well studied and understood, and appropriate levels can be set for development guidelines. As a society, we do very little to limit noise. There are very few restrictions on noise, specifically for vehicles, heating and cooling systems, and equipment. Sound is measured in decibels, and the sound levels emitted from wind turbines is well studied.
Wind farms should be developed with setbacks that ensure the sound emitted from the turbines is below the ambient sound at a given that given time. A common concern is that on a calm day, wind turbines will be very audible, but on calm days, the wind turbines won’t be spinning.
We now know that there are homes that are likely too close to the wind turbines in Pubnico. That being said, people have moved into the area since the turbines were installed, and the wind farm is now considered a very positive attraction for the community.
The NS Dept of Energy recently completed a very balanced short film on Pubnico, which is available HERE .
I don’t know much about the Mars Hill project, but from the pictures there are some homes very close to the wind turbines. In Pubnico, Daniel D’Entremont’s home is less than 200m from the nearest wind turbine. Most projects currently under development in Nova Scotia now have set backs from over three times this distance.
Regarding the people concerned about the Glen Dhu project, I understand the frustration associated with not knowing specifics about the wind farm and I also understand the challenges faced by Shear Wind to build a project of that size in Nova Scotia.
However, with distances over 1km from the nearest turbines, there is truly no way that they will be affected by the noise from the turbines. What is really at issue here, is that aesthetics of the landscape. Just like Anne Murray, they just don’t want to look at them. Aesthetics are subjective, there are no units to measure like sound, and therefore, it is very hard to plan around. Unpleasing aesthetics have never made anyone sick.
We need to be careful not to confuse the subjective and objective issues in this debate, which was not done in this article. The vast majority of people like how they look, which is also evident in the Pubnico video.
To truly analyze the health impacts of wind energy one must compare them to the health effectives of the alternatives. Where the health effects of someone living too close to a wind turbine are easy to point at, the health impacts from our addiction to fossil fuels are more subtle, but also far more damaging.
Nova Scotia has the highest emissions in the industrialized world, for GHGs, mercury, SOx, NOx and many others. We also have the highest asthma and cancer rates in the county.
In addition to the health affects here were we use fossil fuels, there are also health affects where that energy is mined and produced. BP’s gulf oil spill is the most obvious example, but there are also coal mining deaths in Virginia, Columbia and other places we buy coal. Striping mining is common for coal mining, so entire ecosystems are being demolished for our energy supply.
Oil Spills just don’t happen somewhere else too, just ask the folks in Albro Lake whose house will have to be demolished because their oil tank leaked. And stuff like this happens every week in Nova Scotia.
Reports from Ontario, who has done a lot of work on the health impacts of both fossil fuels and wind energy show that every taxpayer pays $1000’s every year in health care taxes due to our use of fossil fuels. (Source: health effects of wind energy on health care costs of fossil fuels see Pages 17-20 of this 2008 SWFI Paper )
And one can’t forget the global effects of climate change. Floods, heat waves, droughts, hurricanes and other natural disasters are getting more damaging and happening more often.
So while we need to make sure wind turbines are properly sited, there is really no comparison between the health impacts of wind energy versus fossil fuels.
Is Wind really “Green”?
While green is a completely subjective word, to imply that wind energy doesn’t reduce fossil fuel consumption or ghg emissions are completely false. It is true that increasing amounts of wind energy on our electrical grid will require technical upgrades ,but those are as much a result of the inability of thermal plants to change their output, as it is of wind turbines to change theirs.
The truth is that every kWh produced by a wind turbine offsets a kWh of fossil fuel based energy, and since it is more decentralized, you can argue the energy offset is closer to 1.1kWh for every 1kWh of wind energy. This also means that every unit of wind energy reduces our ghg emissions and water consumption associated with fossil fuel consumptions. Currently this rate in Nova Scotia is close to 0.8 tonnes of GHGs for every 1000kWh. That number would multiply by close to three times if full life cycle emissions were analyzed.
Therefore, any claims that wind energy isn’t good for our environment are completely misleading.
Energy Pricing and Security.
The costs of fossil fuels will always trend upwards over time. Over the past 20 years or so, this rate is between 6%-13% per year. This is often referred to as energy inflation, which is far greater than regular inflation. Renewable Energy sources like wind and solar that don’t have a fuel associated with them, don’t have this problem. They can offer a fixed price over a long period of time. For wind energy, these prices are very competitive in today’s dollars versus other sources that aren’t fixed, which means the economic advantage will only grow over time. All of the wind energy projects built or being built in Nova Scotia has a fixed price associated with them.
Since Nova Scotia is extremely dependant on fossil fuels, these wind energy projects give us a distinct economic advantage over the alternative.
In addition to being addicted to fossil fuels, Nova Scotia is also addicted to importing energy. Over $1Billion/year leaves Nova Scotia every year to purchase fossil fuels for Electricity Consumption. Renewable energy offers an opportunity to spend that money inside Nova Scotia, and put it to work in our rural communities that sorely need it.
In Nova Scotia, the price of electricity is a tremendous concern, and one that surely keeps our government awake at night. We can’t lose track of the fact that renewable energy is the answer to these concerns, not the cause.
As you can see, I have many issues with this latest article about wind energy in The Coast. The Coast has presented many of the arguments I’ve made above in previous articles, and have given me personally the opportunity to participate in the discussion. I hope that future reporting on this issue is objective, and that the urge to simply create controversies out of nothing in order to sell more papers and advertising that is so common in the media these days is resisted.
