Is Wind Energy Renewable Or Nonrenewable – Misinformation stalls renewable energy projects The spread of misinformation about solar and wind power is prompting some states and municipalities to limit or reject the projects. Researchers say this is a threat to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A wind turbine is silhouetted against the sky at sunset near Ellsworth, Kansas. The 300-foot-tall turbine is among 134 units that make up the Post Rock Wind Farm. Hide caption Charlie Riddell/AP
Is Wind Energy Renewable Or Nonrenewable
A wind turbine is silhouetted against the sky at sunset near Ellsworth, Kansas. The 300-foot-tall turbine is among 134 units that make up the Post Rock Wind Farm.
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On a winter night in early 2016, Jeremy Kitson gathered with a few neighbors in his friend’s big shed to plan his fight against a proposed wind farm in rural Van Wert County, Ohio. The project will be approximately one mile from your home.
From the start, Kitson – who teaches physics and chemistry at a local school – knew he didn’t want turbines anywhere near him. He heard from people living near another wind farm about 10 miles away that the turbines were so noisy they couldn’t sleep.
“A lot of people were saying, ‘This is horrible, you don’t want to be under that stuff,'” says Kitson.
He and his neighbors became aggressive. “I thought there had to be a way to beat them,” he says of the developer, Apek Clean Energi. “You have to outsmart them.” You have to understand the science. You have to understand the economic arguments. You have to figure out what they’re going to say and figure out how to counter that.”
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In the shed, according to Kitson, they agreed that part of their work included posting information on a Facebook community page called “Citizens for Clear Skies,” which eventually grew to more than 770 followers.
Between posts selling wind protection signs and posts about public rallies against local wind projects, there were posts spreading false, misleading and questionable information about wind energy. Links to stories about wind turbine noise causing birth defects in Portuguese horses. Health effects of low frequency infrasound, also known as wind turbine syndrome. Posts about Wind energy not actually reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Photos of collapsing, burning and falling wind turbines – some in nearby counties and states, but others in Germany and New Zealand. According to 2014 data from the Department of Energy, less than 40 of the 40,000 turbines in the U.S. at the time were the most recent available.
An anti-wind turbine sign stands in the front yard of a rural home in Glenville, Minnesota in January 2018. Opponents of wind energy are successfully stopping or rejecting wind projects across the country. Hide caption Charlie Niebergl/AP
An anti-wind turbine sign stands in the front yard of a rural home in Glenville, Minnesota in January 2018. Opponents of wind energy are successfully stopping or rejecting wind projects across the country.
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Kitson, the administrator of the Facebook page, says he knows such mishaps are not uncommon. “These events are unlikely. We know that,” says Kitson. But Kitson saw a broken piece of a fallen turbine blade, which made him concerned about how fiberglass could affect the integrity of soil and crops. He then posts photos and articles, many of which he gets from the anti-wind mailing list. “I’m doing this to try to show people what’s possible.”
Kitson’s group is one of dozens in the United States and abroad that oppose utility-scale wind and solar projects. Misinformation among many groups is causing skepticism about renewables and delaying or derailing projects, researchers say.
The opposition comes as climate scientists say the world must move quickly away from fossil fuels to avoid the worst effects of climate change. But 60% of America’s electricity still comes from carbon-based fuels.
To achieve the Biden administration’s goal of a fossil-fuel-free electricity sector by 2035, the country needs to double or triple the wind and solar capacity it installs over the next few years and maintain high levels of use for about a decade. , says Kelly Speaks-Buckman, who heads the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
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President Biden takes notes during a meeting to discuss clean energy efforts with U.S. utility CEOs at the White House in February 2022. Hide caption Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
President Biden takes notes during a meeting to discuss clean energy efforts with U.S. utility CEOs at the White House in February 2022.
However, building any rural utility-scale wind and solar project requires local or state approval, says Sarah Mills, who conducts rural renewable energy research at the University of Michigan. And she says misinformation in these often heated debates over approvals sometimes delays and inhibits the installation of renewable energy that the climate needs. “At the end of the day, if local governments don’t set the rules that allow infrastructure to be localized, those policies can’t be implemented,” says Mills.
Last year, an Energy Department study found that barrier regulations are now the biggest obstacle to securing sites for wind projects in the US. such as noise and “shadow flicker”, moving shadows and the strobe sunlight that turbines can cast on buildings. But she says misinformation can lead to stricter than necessary and sometimes outright bans on renewable energy.
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In Ohio, barriers and other regulations related to renewable energy projects have historically been established at the state level. But in October, a new law, SB 52, went into effect that gave counties the ability to create exclusion zones without wind and solar projects.
Kitson, a science teacher, testified in support of the zone, arguing that the turbines negatively affect property values. He pointed to his group’s analysis comparing the lowest property values in local municipalities with wind turbines to the highest average property values in large municipalities.
But Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researcher Ben Hoen says his more than 15 years of research has shown that wind turbines have little effect on nearby property values. “We found no evidence of an impact on property values even after studying over different time periods,” says Hoenn.
Hoen says studies in the Netherlands and the UK found some effects on property values, but they were much smaller than Kitson’s benchmark for studies showing 20% to 40% depreciation.
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Mills says that in about half of the states, regulations on how and when to build solar and wind farms in rural areas are determined at the local level. “These local officials are not necessarily energy experts,” she says. “And so when you have people coming in and saying things as fact, it’s hard, especially if nobody’s checking everything. They’re definitely making decisions based on what they’re hearing.”
In recent years, some of the misinformation about renewable energy has come from former President Donald Trump, who frequently makes false and misleading claims about wind at his rallies and in the media, including the false idea that wind turbine noise causes cancer. Earlier this month, when asked about the crisis in Ukraine on a podcast, Trump quickly responded by citing misconceptions about wind energy.
Other misconceptions about renewable energy come from groups tied to the fossil fuel industry, such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The foundation recently released a film trailer for the Massachusetts offshore wind advocacy group that contains numerous falsehoods, including that the proposed project has not undergone any environmental impact assessment and falsely claims that offshore wind projects “don’t work anywhere in the world.” The Texas Public Policy Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
But Facebook is the biggest driver of misleading content about renewable energy, says Josh Fergen, a researcher at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Last fall, Fergen and his colleagues published a paper that analyzed Facebook posts by Kitson Group and Republic Wind Farm, located about 90 kilometers to the east.
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Fergen’s article concluded that posts on the two Facebook pages “share misinformation about human health and public safety risks, disaster news, and health assessment risks.” In June, the Ohio Electric Power Board, which required approval for the site, rejected the Republic Wind Farm proposal, citing geological issues and local opposition.
Browsed through dozens of posts by anti-wind and solar groups. Some posts about climate change denial, lithium mining and a quote wrongly attributed to Winston Churchill were flagged as fake, while dozens of posts containing misinformation about renewable energy were not flagged.
Facebook sent a sample of posts from anti-renewal community pages. Facebook spokesman Kevin McAllister said in an emailed statement: “We our
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