Harvard Study Finds Wind Turbines Will Cause More Warming Than Emissions Reductions Would Avert
Hot air from the wind industry
A few weeks ago, we wrote about how Gallup polling found 66 percent of Americans think the environment is getting worse despite the fact that air quality in the United States has improved dramatically since the 1970’s. This improvement was due in large part to the Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments, as a reader noted.
Another commenter stated that Democrats’ and Independents’ views of the environment likely shift when Republicans hold the White House because they view the environment as inextricably linked to climate, while Republicans don’t think about climate at all.
The Gallup data appear to support this claim for Democrats and Republicans. Climate change was the top environmental concern for Democrats, with 72 percent worrying about it, while climate change ranked last for Republicans, with only 6 percent worrying about this issue.
Independents, for their part, care about climate, but less so than other environmental issues like having access to clean drinking water, pollution in lakes and rivers, and air pollution.
While an overwhelming majority of Democrats worry about global warming or climate change and its impact on people, plants, and ecosystems, few appear to be aware that their preferred solutions to mitigate future warming—i.e., wind and solar power—would cause more immediate warming in the United States than reducing our emissions would offset.
Before we get into it, check out Mitch’s discussion on Fox 5 Live Zone with host Guy Lambert about President Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge and background on why it’s needed in the first place.
Warmed with the Wind
A 2018 study by Harvard scientists, published in the academic journal Joule, modeled the temperature impacts of scaling up wind turbines to meet all U.S. electricity generation and found that doing so would significantly increase local surface temperatures throughout the country.
It is important to note that the wind turbines do not produce new warming. Instead, they increase surface temperatures by redistributing heat in the air that already exists. This occurs when the blades cause turbulence, mixing warmer air that has risen with cooler air near the ground, as shown in the infographic below.
Wind-induced warming would increase surface temperatures in the “wind farm region” by an average of almost 1.1 to 1.4°F (0.6°C), while surface temperatures throughout the Continental US would increase by about 0.5°F (0.24°C), which you can see in the graph below.
In contrast, the study found the cooling impact of reducing emissions would be very small. U.S. temperature reductions from lowering our domestic emissions would be around 0.2 to 0.4°F (around 0.16°C) by 2100.
Furthermore, the warming from wind is larger, more localized, and immediate, affecting the people, plants, and animals living near the turbines today, while the avoided warming effects of reduced greenhouse gas emissions are smaller, spread out globally, and would not offset the wind-induced warming experienced before 2100.
Where the Wind Warms
According to the study, the Great Plains and Midwest would be the most impacted by wind warming, as they are expected to host roughly 1.3 to 1.5 million megawatts (MW) of wind capacity needed to meet the average U.S. electricity consumption.
For reference, there are only about 150,000 to 160,000 MW of wind currently installed in the United States, which means it would take roughly 10 times as many turbines to meet the annual energy needs of the country as we have today.1 At today’s prices, this buildout would cost over $2.2 trillion, and of course, wind turbines only last 20-30 years.
North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas would experience the most warming, with temperatures increasing by 1.4 to 1.8°F on average, while smaller warming effects would spread from Montana to Michigan, by 0.5 to 0.9°F.
Notably, nighttime temperatures would increase by more than daytime temperatures, with the mercury rising by 2 to 2.5°F (1.5°C) in the most affected portions of the country. The warming at night is most prevalent for wind because during the day, convection from the sun is the primary mechanism for mixing the heat in the air, but at night, that mixing is caused by the turbine blades spinning.
Implications of Wind Warming
Wind and solar advocates will likely argue that the warming caused by wind is not as bad as the warming caused by emissions because wind turbines neither generate new warming nor trap new heat in the atmosphere.
However, this argument misses the point. If the entire purpose of reducing greenhouse emissions is to mitigate the negative impacts on the environment, people, plants, and animals caused by a warming world, it does not make sense to incur the economic and environmental costs of warming using intermittent energy when other alternatives exist.
A 2017 study that attempted to quantify the costs of warming estimated that the U.S. would lose 1 percent of its GDP per year for every 1°C increase in temperature. If wind warming increases temperatures in the U.S. by 0.24 degrees C, then the annual cost of wind warming would be roughly $72-$75 billion per year when all the turbines were up and running in 2080, per the Harvard study, and smaller in the years leading up to it.
It makes exceedingly little sense to spend $2.2 trillion building a power system that would guarantee that we incur tens of billions of dollars in damages each year from large, localized, and immediate wind-induced warming in exchange for temperature changes that are too small and too dispersed to be perceptible at the local level in most of our lifetimes.
After all, we should care just as much about the people living today as we do the people living in the future. According to the Harvard study, residents in the “wind farm region” would experience so much near-term warming from wind turbines that it would essentially require the entire world to decarbonize by 2080 for them to start coming out ahead from a temperature perspective, based on the study’s findings.
Conclusion
Wind and solar are often described as messianic technologies that will save the planet from increasing warming. While these sources do not emit greenhouse gases, they cause a greater and more immediate impact on regional temperatures by mixing air columns and through the solar heat island effect, although this impact is much smaller than wind-driven warming.
Policymakers should question the wisdom of spending $2.2 trillions building 1.3 million megawatts (MW) of wind turbine capacity (more when we consider they only last 20-30 years) for the privilege of causing more immediate, local warming than we hope to avert on a global scale in over 100 years by reducing emissions.
For our friends who are truly worried about the implications of a warmer world, this is a clear sign they should embrace nuclear and be gone with the wind.
New York Demands a Climate Sacrifice by the Wall Street Journal Journal
Rage Against the Data Center by Robert Bryce
New York’s grid operator says the lights might go out this summer by Sarah Montalbano
This does not include the overbuilding that would be necessary, but that is not really an issue in this context because the warming effect of wind is based on mixing. If the turbines are curtailed because the power isn’t needed, then the mixing would stop, too.
Wind Turbines at utility scale both in their individual size and the wind “farm” geography are enormous and expensive failures. Having been the “owners” manager on two utility scale wind projects in the Midwest and Northwest this writer can report they are expensive to build, operate and maintain, and without the massive government subsidies are so unprofitable that no bank would finance them, as they would not make it past the first credit committee meeting. Their performa would be binned in a matter of minutes. So we come to the measuring the warming of the ambient air temperatures at the surface to 1000 feet and find they are disturbed and warmer than normal, when the blades are turning. Anyone ask the local bird population what they think? Well if the loss of habitat, bird strikes and loss of bird population is any indicator, the birds don’t think much of a 400 foot tower with a single wide120 ton trailer on top that has 380 foot blades spinning with a speed at the tip breaking the sound barrier. That’s all before we get to shadow flicker and noise.
Then the real shake down. Grid reliability which is always negatively affected. Who needs an additional 300 mega watts of power at 0200 when everyone is sleeping? Exactly, no one. We could go on going but why spoil the beauty of their failure with facts.
It has been a glorious 30 year grift. Some got rich, most just paid for the mess in the guise of higher home rate payer bills. It’s not over yet! While decommissioning of these projects is baked into the financing model you can be sure the money isn’t there and the rate payer will pay again for the privilege of removing the mess they paid to build. One need only watch the Governor of Massachusetts flip a giant sized switch on the wall in February in gleeful excitement that only a two year old or mid wit politician can muster when “she” turned on the power with Hydro Quebec. Poor dear, no one told her about the Force Majure paragraph in the Power Purchase Agreement. Turns out it gets cold in Quebec in the winter months, well colder than usual. So they keep the electricity for their own customers. The deal for 20% of Massachusetts electrical load goes “poof” in the night. Best turn on those old coal boilers…whoops! You can make any of it up. More bad will follow the do gooders, they are all like bad weather at sea, with us always.
I didn't see the hydrocarbon investment to make and maintain the turbines accounted for. Concrete is not green. Each turbine requires many gallons of oil for the gearbox. Some studies suggest 20-30 years is overly optimistic for a lifecycle, and disposal is still an issue. Also, back up peaker plants are required for when the wind doesn't blow. That also has a hydrocarbon coat.