Why support wind power

Working PV: 2.0kW × 24 × 365 × 0.18 = 3 221 kWh/yr = 3.221 MWh/yr Wind turbine: 2.1MW × 24 × 365 × 0.34 = 6 255 MWh/yr Note: the 0.18 (18%) capacity factor for solar was derived from various sources including Wikipedia and my own solar installation. The 0.34 capacity factor for wind was calculated as the weighted average of all the larger wind farms on the south-eastern Australian power grid.

This is good, but how does it compare to wind power?

The average roof-top solar power system in Australia is just over 2 kilowatts (figures from the Australian Renewable Energy Regulator) and will generate about 3.22 megawatt-hours of electricity each year. A typical 2.1 megawatt wind turbine will generate about 6300 megawatt-hours each year, as much as 2000 roof-top solar power systems!

(The working for these calculations is shown on the right. See the glossary for an explanation of capacity factor.)

So while putting a solar power systems on your roof is a step in the right direction, providing support to a wind-power company that wants to put wind turbines on our hills is a step that is a couple of thousand times bigger.

Wind power displaces fossil-fuel power

Fossil fuel power stations

Gas-fired power stations release about half the CO₂ (per MWh of electricity) that coal stations produce and they also release nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. (See USA EPA)

Some effects of climate change...

1. Higher temperatures and increased summer temperature stress on animals and plants. (As of early 2010, Australia had its hottest year on record in 2005, 2009 was a close second. The decade ending in December 2009 was the hottest ever in Australia. South Australia had its hottest year on record in 2009, its second hottest in 2007 – Bureau of Meteorology.)
2. With rising temperatures bushfires will become more frequent, fiercer, and will burn greater areas;
3. An increase in the frequency of extreme weather events such as floods, severe dust storms and hurricanes;
4. Long-term rainfall decline in some areas, increase in others. In many cases this will cause the displacement of the residents of those areas;
5. Habitat change; some areas will become unsuited for their fauna and flora;
6. Warming oceans causes bleaching of coral reefs. This will result in the loss of reefs – Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in serious danger;
7. Loss of the Arctic Ocean ice sheet in summer, loss of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, with largely unknown, but probably very serious, consequences;
8. The spread of some diseases into areas where they have not previously been a problem. Recently the leading medical journal, the Lancet, described the health impacts of climate change as "the biggest global health threat of the 21st century". (See Doctors for the Environment Australia);
9. Extinction of many species;
10. Destabilisation of populations; Mick Keelty, head of the Australian Federal Police, has said that this will be the greatest threat to Australia's future security;
11. Possible changing of some of the major oceanic currents (if the Gulf Stream was to fail, as seems possible, much of northern Europe would become uninhabitable);
12. Sea level rise – which will lead to flooding of some very populous river deltas (eg. Nile, Mekong, Ganges) with resultant displacement and probable starvation of millions. Several low-lying Pacific island nations could virtually disappear;
13. The melting of mountain glaciers, particularly in the Himalayas, with the consequent forming of high altitude lakes. The lakes are held back by moraines which then become unstable and can burst causing catastrophic flooding.
14. Loss of productivity of farm land due to the weather ceasing to be suitable.
15. Possible run-away greenhouse due to such things as release of the methane currently locked up in permafrost, melting of sea-ice, etc. There is even a very small possibility that such a run-away greenhouse event could cause the Earth to become a second Venus; a lifeless planet that 'has been cooked to death'.

My pages on climate change in the international context and in the Australian context discuss the subject in more depth.

Health concerns

It is notable that very few of the landowners who profit from wind farms on their property have any health problems from the turbines. (Wind farm opponents explain this by saying that they are under gag orders on the contracts that they signed. In fact the confidentiality applies only to the contract itself, not to any health effects.) Wind farm workers, likewise, do not suffer adverse health effects. This point was made by the CFMEU (Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union) in their submission to the recent Senate inquiry into 'The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms'.

Dr Sarah Laurie, Medical Director of the Waubra Foundation, has many stories of people who are convinced that they have been made ill by wind turbines. She has no evidence that the illnesses were caused by the turbines rather than by anxiety or other causes. She cannot say what it is that is coming from wind turbines that could possibly make people ill. Clinical psychologist, Dr Sarah Edelman, has provided a far more convincing explanation for these cases.

The Waubra Foundation itself, while claiming to be independent, is closely linked to the Australian Landscape Guardians (ALG), a vociferous anti-wind-power group. The Waubra Foundation has the same address as the ALG! The Chairman of the Waubra Foundation is chairman and/or director of a number of fossil fuel, mining, and uranium exploration companies. In its turn, the ALG has links with the right-wing pro-nuclear Institute of Public Affairs. (See an interesting and revealing exposé of these links by Sandi Keane on the Independent Australia site.)

Are there medical doctors who hold views contrary to those of Dr Laurie?

Health problems without wind farms

The proven health problems relating to the burning of fossil fuels (especially coal, bunkering oil used for shipping, and diesel oil) are far worse than any that are claimed to be caused by wind turbines. Not only do coal-fired power station produce climate changing CO₂, they also produce particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen; all of which cause serious and undisputed health problems in a great many people. They also release the toxic heavy metal mercury into the atmosphere.

Wikipedia, Environmental effects of coal burning, states that "Coal-fired power plants shorten nearly 24 000 lives a year in the United States, including 2 800 from lung cancer".

Noise

The greatest distance I've ever heard wind turbines from is about 2.5 km, and then only in a light breeze. In a strong breeze the noise made in nearby shrubs and trees drowns out the turbine sounds. If there were any cars within a kilometre or two of me their noise made it impossible for me to hear the turbines. (I have heard it claimed that sound levels of up to 100 dB have been measured 3 km from wind turbines. Such readings can only be explained as being due to someone not familiar with sound meters allowing the wind to blow over the microphone.)

The best thing you can do to learn the facts on the sound levels from wind turbines is to visit a wind farm yourself. (More on noise and wind turbines elsewhere.)

Land values

Advantages of having a nearby wind farm

There is every reason to expect the same boost to the local community from any proposed wind farm.

A bonus to local people who value their environment, want to see climate change and ocean acidification limited and want their grandchildren to have a future, is that they can see these graceful giants working toward that any time the wind blows.

Sustainable wind energy per capita In 2011 both Denmark (more wind energy per capita than any other nation) and South Australia had about 700 Watts of wind power per person. I estimate that Mid North SA has 30 000 people; it has 619 MW of installed wind power – that's more than 20 000 Watts per person.

Another point, from a purely personal point of view. South Australia has about half of Australia's wind power, and my region, Mid North SA, has more than half of SA's wind power. South Australia, per capita, has about as much wind power as any country on Earth (see graph and the box on the right); it follows that my region, per capita, is hosting more renewable energy than most other regions on earth. By supporting wind power, I believe that I have the right to feel some pride in this, and I do. My region is well and truly pulling its weight in the battle against climate change.

Relevance to Australia

Contrary to many politically motivated claims, Australia is in no danger of 'going it alone' in attempting to reduce greenhouse emissions. Most European countries are well ahead, and developing countries like India and China are working hard to develop clean energy. It is true that China is building many coal-fired power stations. It is also true that China is building far more wind turbines than any other nation on earth, and that China's per capita greenhouse gas production is way below that of Australia.

Visual amenity

Clements Gap Wind Farm

Wind farms are built where they are most financially viable. If local people stop them being built anywhere near houses or towns it is quite possible that they will not be built at all, because of the cost of building too far from power transmission lines, or because they will generate less electricity in areas where the winds are not suitable.

Finally, is your view more important than your children's futures and the future of the world?

What can you do?

The same person, if he tried hard and was very successful in convincing other people to do as he had done, might have a part in saving a hundred tonnes of CO₂ a year.

If same person, by influencing public opinion, managed to get one more moderate sized wind farm built than would otherwise have been built, would have played an important part in a project that reduces CO₂ emissions by two hundred thousand tonnes a year.

The opinions of the general public, councilors, state and federal politicians are very important in determining whether or not wind farms, and other sustainable energy projects, are built. Many lies and half-truths are spread by climate change deniers and wind power opponents.

You could contact your state and federal political representatives, talk to your local councillors, write letters to newspapers, and use social media like Facebook and Twitter to give people the facts about how wind power can make a big impact on our nation's greenhouse gas emissions. Use these pages and those that are listed in my links page to get the facts about wind power. Contact me if you think that I can help you, my email address is near the top of this page.

Supreme principle of ethics

The philosophical discipline of ethics is all about the question of how we should balance our own needs and wants with those of others. Most people would agree that ethical behaviour involves modifying one's own demands if they unreasonably interfere with the needs of nearby people.

A trivial example is the loud exhaust systems that some people like to have on their cars – they place their enjoyment of the sound ahead of the annoyance they cause to all those people who have to live with the noisier environment. If the annoyance to others outweighs the enjoyment, then the act is unethical. I will not discuss how to balance personal enjoyment with annoyance of others here.

So, we have an ethical responsibility to consider the needs of those close to us, but what of those further away? A thousand years or more ago, when most of the moral codes of the world's great religions were being developed, the actions of individual people had little effect on anyone but their near neighbours. With the coming of industrialisation and globalisation that has changed; the actions of everyone, in what and how much we consume, how much water we use and what we do with our waste water, how we dispose of our rubbish; what chemicals we use and how we use them, what plants, animals, or diseases we spread from one country to another – all these things can effect other people, and not just those close to us.

Of relevance to the present subject is the question of how much carbon dioxide we are responsible for releasing into the atmosphere and how it affects other people. We know that carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gasses, are causing global warming and climate change and that these are damaging the environment of the planet. We therefore have an ethical responsibility to minimise the amount of carbon dioxide that we cause to be released. It is also reasonable to expect those who place most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to make a greater effort than other people (Australians, per-capita, are responsible for more than the people of most other nations).

That, then is what ethics is about. What about 'the supreme principle of ethics'? I suggest that this involves not only considering how we interact with those near to us, nor even how we interact with people on the other side of the world, but how we interact with all of life on the planet. Climate change will affect all of life on earth.

"The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?" (Jeremy Bentham, 1748-1832; on discussing whether animals should have rights as people have rights.) Can micro-organisms suffer? Is extinction suffering? I certainly think that humanity has no ethical right to cause extinction of other species.

Conclusion

If you oppose the construction of a local wind farm you are harming your children's future by slowing the adoption of sustainable energy. The alternative to sustainable energy is unsustainable energy, climate change and ocean acidification. It's as simple as that.

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