Look up dirty wind, and you’ll find plenty to read on these pages, but not everyone has that sort of time. But wind power is dirty, and it’s not a secret, except that the left does not want to talk about it.
Related: Harvard: Wind Turbines Warm the Planet
That does not mean you should not. Especially when the locals are like, we’re thinking about adding Wind up there on that ridge.
Disregarding the carbon footprint for manufacture and construction, not a mall number. Wind rarely delivers the promised power, nor does it last anywhere near as long as predicted. It kills thousands of birds and bats (talk about exacerbating your insect problems) and has any number of potential health impacts on locals. But forget all that negative stuff and pay attention to this negative stuff.
While motor and housing include parts you can recycle or crush before dumping in a landfill, the turbine blades cannot. And they are a noxious blend of material with a significant front-end and back-end carbon footprint.
The wind turbine blades are a toxic amalgam of unique composites, fiberglass, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride foam, polyethylene terephthalate foam, balsa wood, and polyurethane coatings. So, basically, there is just too much plastic-composite-epoxy crapola that isn’t worth recycling. Again, even though there are a few small recycling centers for wind turbine blades, it isn’t economical to do on a large scale.
Even the BBC says it is destroying the planet.
Local Democrats (and a few too many Republicans) are pining for massive financial incentives from federal Dems to build more of these nasty monoliths without any regard for disposal or the toxic blades that have to be cut up with special equipment (more carbon footprint) before they are buried in the ground, never to degrade.
Related: Dirty Secret: The Green Energy Utopia is an Oppressive Carbon-Intensive Mess
Environmentally conscious, this is not.
But that’s what they’ll tell you.
It’s not green, not safe, and it won’t lower your electric bill, so why do it?
Great question. More people should ask it because the Ocean variety is worse and candidates are running on adding more wind and solar energy – and solar is worse than wind.
