Industrial Wind

What are the facts? Environmental savior or nightmare?

Let’s start with the basics of just materials used and of those material how much is USA sourced vs imported.

According to the Northwest Mining Association, A single 3-MW wind turbine needs:

• 335 tons of steel

• 4.7 tons of copper

• 1,200 tons of concrete (cement and aggregates) [~600 yards]

• 3 tons of aluminum

• 2 tons of rare earth elements

• zinc

• molybdenum

Metals / Minerals Used in Clean Power Systems % Net Import Reliance. The figures represent what is imported to manufacture the structure from foundation up.

Steel 8%

Concrete 12%

Copper 32%

Lithium 50%

Titanium 54%

Silver 60%

Zinc 73%

Cobalt 81%

Platinum 91%

Aluminum 100%

Rare earth elements 100%

Nickel (new sources) 100%

That’s a lot to ponder.

Then we have the amount of earth moved for the foundation.
Depending upon soil type and conditions that can mean a 30 foot hole x 50 foot diameter or 15 feet deep and 100 foot diameter. So somewhere between 2500 and 4500 cubic yards of earth moved just for the foundation.

For perspective below is various images of foundations.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=wind+turbine+foundation&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images

Of course these foundations are in place forever, even after the towers are decommissioned and taken down. Its just not economical to dig that concrete and rebar out.

https://energyskeptic.com/2020/900-tons-of-material-to-build-just-1-windmill/

Many of these Industrial Wind Turbines sites are remote so the require more steel, more copper, more roads to put up and maintain transmission lines. Requiring more destruction of land. Some areas such as those west of the 100^th meridian are fragile lands that will take generations if ever to recover from these activities. Their are still wagon ruts in these places fro the Oregon Trail migration.

Let’s look at the Nebraska Sandhills. MY thoughts while not proved out should be seriously considered as if I am correct it would be devastating to this fragile land. These are sand dunes cover with a very thin layer of soil and grass. It only takes a few drives in the same path to harm the grass to the point you have a trail that will take years to recover. We have played with sand and water, sand settles water rises. Now consider the vibration that these large turbines have, put that in a sandy are and the sand settles and water rises. Putting these in a concentrated area does what? Have we had a honest study, is their any organization we can trust to do one? Then we have the heavy equipment and deliveries these IWT sites require. How many “new” roads will be created after a few rigs us the same path?

Blowouts in the Sandhills is a serious concern. As you can see from the link below the damage is permanent. While new plants and grass will eventually gain a foot hold it will take decades to do so. The link below shows blowout, mostly just from a strong sustained wind or cattle trails.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=sandhill+blowouts&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images

Shameless plug: Here are some pictures of the Nebraska Sandhills.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=nebraska+sandhills&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/nebraska/sandhills-ne/

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=wildcat+hills+nebraska&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images

If you’ve never visited the Sandhills, Wildcat hills or the buttes of Northwestern Nebraska around Fort Robinson you are truly missing out.

So do we really need to have red lights flashing on top of these towers all night, polluting the view and ruin these spectacular areas for a few MegaWatts for our expensive government mandated electric cars?

Rare Earths

When we look at the mining required for all these materials, many of these mines are in other countries that lack environmental laws, many of the mines are strip mines where the solid is removed and a hole is dug. Link to images below.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=strip+mining&atb=v344-1&iax=images&ia=images

The area surrounding these mines is usually highly polluted. In just China it is estimated 20% of the farmland is polluted. As you can imagine other countries such as Malaysia, Chile, Argentina, SE Asia in general all have these same problems.
Is all this on wind and solar? No of course not, however they are adding a huge portion due to the fact they need rare earth minerals that these countries have.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/chinas-choice/2014/apr/18/china-one-fifth-farmland-soil-pollution

Then add in this mix we are totally dependent on these unstable countries for these rare earths and China is an enemy despite what we have been told. Computers, cars everything we have become acustom to can face export bans from these countries and they are starting these bans now.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-firm-axt-applying-permits-after-china-restricts-chipmaking-exports-2023-07-04/

https://thediplomat.com/2023/09/malaysia-flags-ban-on-export-of-rare-earth-minerals/

Our society has become so sophisticated that we are now beholden to 2^nd and 3^rd world countries. That is not a good thing.

Health effects of Wind

The health effects of wind are real. From shadow flicker, to the constant rythmatic swoosh.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3653647/

“Pierpont documented symptoms reported by individuals exposed to wind turbines, which include sleep disturbance, headache, tinnitus, ear pressure, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, visual blurring, tachycardia, irritability, problems with concentration and memory, and panic episodes associated with sensations of internal pulsation or quivering when awake or asleep.¹³ The American Wind Energy Association and the Canadian Wind Energy Association convened a panel literature review that determined these symptoms are the “well-known stress effects of exposure to noise,” or in other words, are “a subset of annoyance reactions.”²⁶

Noise-induced annoyance is acknowledged to be an adverse health effect.^27–30 Chronic severe noise annoyance should be classified as a serious health risk.³¹ According to the WHO guidelines for community noise, “[t]he capacity of a noise to induce annoyance depends upon many of its physical characteristics, including its sound pressure level and spectral characteristics, as well as the variations of these properties over time.”³² Industrial wind turbine noise is perceived to be more annoying than transportation noise or industrial noise at comparable sound pressure levels.³³ Industrial wind turbine amplitude modulation,³⁴ audible low frequency noise,³⁵ tonal noise, infrasound,³⁶ and lack of nighttime abatement have been identified as plausible noise characteristics that could cause annoyance and other health effects.”

So even the NIH admits there are health problems associated with the low level constant noise.

This link is one mans story with shadow flicker and the constant noise. Can you imagine no peace and quite, the for hours on end of shadow flicker inside your house? This is not right, these turbines are inflicting damage to his property value – who wants to live by these things? His mental and physical health are also real issues. You cannot in most areas put up a chicken or hog confinement building this close to your neighbors, yet these IWT’s are a larger nuisance affecting your mental and physical health within minutes and are placed near property lines. A few years ago went to look at one of the IWT sites in Broken Bow, NE. It was interesting as even as a child windmills fascinated me. So we were close and decided to go have a look. The wind was blowing and the sun was out. After about 10 minutes I said I gotta get out of here. The rythmic noise and shadow flicker was more than I could take. It was nauseating. I have no idea how people can live in ear shot of these things. Solution? Put laws in place that their can be no shadow flicker that crosses the property line, and all noise must be at normal levels at the property line. This would result in those that want wind towers on their property to keep the effects on their property.

More shadow flicker

Now there are new technologies that at least stop the shadow flicker. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228346-300-smart-sensors-stop-flickering-wind-turbines/?_ptid=%7Bkpdx%7DAAAAwYYDUXbyhAoKcmJhNGYxWmNwZRIQbG1uZ3RjaXJrZHU5anB5cRoMRVg0T1lJVExZRUU2IiUxODIyaDU4MDc4LTAwMDAzMmwzNzk5NXU4ZzQ3aWxwaTBncW1zKhtzaG93VGVtcGxhdGU2MjRIQkkxSUVSUkExMTkwAToMT1Q5RzRJMVpFNkRHQg1PVFZNUjhQWUhFWVNDUhJ2LYUA8BlqMmZqcHFneG9tWg0xNzIuNTguNjIuMTg4YgNkd2Zo55OhqAZwCHgE

However this adds to the problem of winds abysmal ability to be an efficient electricity producers as shutting them off while invading a house or building brings their efficiency down even more that the approximately 33% they have.

Yes you read that right wind historically produces 1/3 of its rated capacity. So that 2.3 MW wing turbine actually only makes 766.666 kw. So when the media and government tell you they are putting in a 23 MW IWT site it really is going to produce 7.66 MW in real life.

https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/energy/wind-energy-factsheet

“The capacity factor of a wind turbine is its average power output divided by its maximum power capability.⁹ Capacity factor of land based wind in the U.S. ranges from 24% to 56% and averages of 36%.⁶ “

We need transparency on these IWT’s and solar. Most individuals with solar and wind installations have a energy production program that keeps real time producing figures available. Why don’t IWT’s and solar projects, why doesn’t government require them? Its our money that is subsidizing these projects. Why do energy companies like OPPD not put these simple programs on the internet so we can see just how much energy their alt energy devices are producing vs rated capacity? Already answered that in previous paragraph – they do not want you to know they are going from reliable power generation to unreliable power generation. Wind only works when the wind is blowing. The figures use to rate IWT and even small home scale wind are rated at peak production which can be around 30mph winds. Where does that happen year round? NOWHERE!

This link is for a Bergey wind turbine, Bergey 1500 was a small home scale system. I use their power curve as its readily available and wind is wind and IWT’s have nearly the same curve. As you can see from the link production peaks at 29 MPH and at cut in speed of 6-7 mph production is near zero and the ramp up even at 18 mph is around ½ rated capacity. Now think about when the wind is blowing this hard and how often. When the wind reaches state capacity the turbines are either furled – turned so they catch less wind, or are slowed down or shut off. At 40+ mph. As you can see, wind has production issues and the media, power companies and government use the rated capacity vs real every day production.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Jongh/publication/237115267/figure/fig1/AS:1002401481912323@1616002545500/Power-curve-of-the-Bergey-1500-3-m-diameter.png

Nearly every home system has a program that tracks production. From this much information can be gleaned. Production, wind speed etc… Of all the power companies I have researched only one has production data vs rated capacity data publicly available. That is NPPD, kudos to NPPD for this valuable information.

https://v1.nppd.com/plantdata

I have talked to OPPD and basically they look at it as a trade secret and are not going to be publishing it. OPPD is owned by the public, we should have access to this data. Surely OPPD is not so antiquated that they are not fed this production data in real time. The real reason is its an embarrassment how much money they have spent vs how much energy wind and solar are producing.

AS you can see wind is sporadic at best, this is hard on the grid. Energy use is realatively constant through the day so just how is that difference made up? Coal fired plants, or natural gas back ups like OPPD is installing. These natural gas back ups are currently being installed by OPPD. You need a reliable base load. Wind and solar in no way reliable enough to be base loads.

https://www.oppd.com/news-resources/news-releases/2022/september/big-move-starts-this-week-in-the-construction-of-oppd-s-new-natural-gas-generation-balancing-plants/

While right now natural gas is relatively cheap it is a world market and can spike do to many events. Cold snap where every power company using natural gas needs more than they have on hand, this results in purchasing gas on the spot market. We seen this a few years ago when the polar vortex reached clear to Texas. We seen Texas wind farms fail, natural gas spiked and people did with out heat.

Then you may ask Martin I keep hearing and reading about climate change and why we need these environment saving alternatives. Well its because moneyed interest that want to control you are buying the media. With this much money sloshing around the media wants to get its share. Truth or reporting the reality of just how poor wind and solar are at producing energy would not pay.

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/09/16/campaigns-to-report-preferred-climate-message-billions-of-dollars-behind-them/

The government subsidies are distorting the market for energy. Solar and wind are subsidized at the commercial level up to 30% by the Federal Government and state subsidies vary. So its lucrative to take these subsidies. On a small scale up to 90% subsidies of a small farm or home sized system are available. https://www.bergey.com/incentives/
Dang if I did not live next to an airport it might be worth a look see. 90 paid for by government that starts looking attractive. Except for the fact there are several in a 10 mile radius and none are currently running. The small ones are just smaller versions of failure. Stuff goes wrong and having a crane come out and hiring a wind specialist to repair it costs more than the energy saving they produce/ So they go up last 3-5 years and stand as a testament as to just how expensive and unreliable wind is.

I will cover more on alternatives, places where wind and solar work and bio fuels in the near future.