Summary of Offshore Wind Turbine Problems

Ten reasons to stop building them immediately

image from windpowerengineering.com

Before getting into the 10 reasons to quit building offshore wind turbines, we need to remember that the very basis for building them in the first place - that CO2 is the cause of global warming, and that humans are the cause of CO2 atmospheric increase, and that global warming is an existential crisis - is shaky and unproven. Many PhD-level scientists disagree with the whole premise, although their dissertations are suppressed by the media. That’s a whole other argument which needs to be brought up more often.

Here’s an audio version, but you need to read the written post if you want to see the links to sources that back up the 10 points.

A secondary reason for building wind turbines is to generate “free” energy from the wind, right? But that premise is more than just shaky; it’s totally disproven. Energy from offshore wind turbines is much more expensive than any other type of electric generation, but again, that’s another topic that deserves a separate piece.

I hardly know where to begin with the arguments against offshore wind. Which is the most important? Not sure. They’re all important, so this summary list is not in any particular order of priority. Actually, each one of these points deserves separate and thorough treatment.

When I mention ‘dirty; CO2 emissions below, that’s not my term - it’s the way climate activists look at it. Personally, I don’t consider CO2 emissions dirty at all, but since the activists do, several of the points below show that they’re defeating their own futile purpose.

1. Because wind is intermittent and unreliable, the more wind turbines there are, the more we need backup, which is usually in the form of gas or coal generated power, or diesel generators in some cases, which defeats the whole purpose if reducing CO2 is the goal.

2. Whales and migratory birds are being killed. The higher the towers, the harder it is for birds to avoid them.

3. Formerly beautiful ocean views are being ruined.

4. Wind turbines are incredibly ‘dirty’ because of their large need for rare earth minerals. The mining process is toxic and destructive to the environment and causes lots of CO2 emissions from heavy diesel-powered equipment. The generators on top of the towers need as much as 1400 litres of oil to keep them lubricated, and over 4000 litres of dirty oil were leaked from  the wind power turbines in Scotland. A recent article also revealed that F6, sulfur hexaflouride, a potent greenhouse gas, is used to insulate the switchgear in turbines and substations and some is guaranteed to leak out.

5. The wind towers are so high that huge concrete bases have to be built to keep them from tipping over. Even a 2 MW wind tower, small by today’s standards, needs about 240 cubic meters, or 660 tons of concrete in the base. Producing and transporting concrete is considered ‘dirty’ with lots of CO2 emissions.

6. We don’t know how well these higher towers will stand up to hurricanes.

7. Undersea cables use tons of copper, of which there is a shortage, so more mining will be necessary, which means more heavy diesel equipment emitting more CO2.

   Undersea cables sweep back and forth on the ocean floor, destroying marine habitat, unless they are buried, which adds to the already astronomical expense.

   Also, “EMF exposure posed by underwater power cables has been causally linked to physical deformities in lobsters, leading to stunted growth that prevents predator evasion, and inducing malformations in claw architecture, which has a deleterious effect on lobster swimming and hunting abilities. Altered magnetic fields under the ocean also affect fish, and have been shown to disorient fish in their migratory patterns” source -the Joule Thief

8. The area under and close to wind turbines is hazardous to boats and fishermen. For example, a 70 ton wind turbine blade failed and flew off in pieces. With all the gears and oil in the generators and electrical switches in the housing, they sometimes catch on fire. Burning parts can fall off. The fires are extremely hard to put out - special equipment is needed to fight fire 900’ feet above the rolling waves.

9. Radar is compromised and unreliable, so search and rescue operations cannot be held in offshore wind turbine areas.

   “The FAA objected to the construction of Cape Wind because it worried that the wind turbines would interfere with the radar system at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod…the Coast Guard will not be able to perform search-and-rescue operations within a wind farm because of interference with maritime radar systems.”

10. The cost is prohibitive. Not a single wind turbine would be built, nor ever will be, without massive subsidies. Plus, wind’s dirty secret is that the components not only need continual, regular maintenance, but most of those components have to be replaced by the time they’re about 12 years old, so the supposed 25 year lifetime is a misnomer.

I had to combine a couple points to get it down to 10 - to make it a good comparison to Moses’ 10 plagues of Egypt.