Study: Hey, these offshore wind farms aren’t good for the ecosystem: Jazz Shaw
There are wind farms being put up all over the place these days, including in many rural areas of the United States. But the offshore wind farms that have been constructed in the North Sea by various European power companies have created a forest of towers rising up over the waves. But that’s not a problem, right? After all, this is the “clean energy” we were all promised and we’re saving the planet so everyone can feel better about themselves. The Biden administration recently announced plans to accelerate offshore wind farm construction in the name of “environmental justice, biodiversity, and protecting our oceans.” But according to one peer-reviewed study published in a prominent nature journal, those wind farms aren’t really good for the ocean ecosystem at all. And they create “substantial” negative impacts on marine life and ocean conditions. Oops. (The Blaze)
In September, the Biden administration announced its “ambitious” plans to expand American offshore wind energy “while advancing environmental justice, protecting biodiversity, and promoting ocean co-use.” A new study has cast significant doubt on whether the White House’s plan and similar initiatives to tackle so-called climate change can be accomplished without creating some substantial negative environmental changes all their own.
In addition to impacting regional atmosphere, “multiple physical, biological, and chemical impacts on the marine system have been identified,” all resultant of these “environmentally jus[t]” solutions.
Previously, researchers had only theorized about the impact of the wind wake effect offshore wind farms had on marine life and ocean conditions. A peer-reviewed study published in the Springer Nature journal “Communications Earth & Environment” revealed that the effects of these wind farms are “substantial.”
Not being a scientist myself, some of the details in the study were a bit hard for me to follow. But the study of the area surrounding the wind farms in the North Sea found increased levels of sediment carbon in the water around the wind turbines. (Wait… weren’t we supposedly doing all of this to reduce carbon?) The researchers also detected significantly lower levels of oxygenation in the water in that region. I’m not sure how that works, but it’s probably not good for the fish and other marine life in the area.
All of this has resulted in changes in nutrient concentration that produce a cascading effect that impacts the entire oceanic food chain. The initial impact is on the small creatures that live in and above the sedimentary regions at the sea bottom. But those animals provide food for the larger fish and the sea birds in the area. Basically, when you suppress the creatures at the bottom of the food chain, it affects everyone else all the way to the top.
A recent British ornithology report found a decrease of five percent in the seabird populations in the region of the larger wind farms. And that’s not even counting the ones that are chopped up when they fly into the turbines.
As The Blaze goes on to point out, each of these turbines has an estimated lifespan of perhaps 20 years. When they go out of service, they can either be left there to rust away or be taken down. But the material used to create the massive blades on the turbines is not recyclable. It’s estimated that after the new, proposed American offshore wind farms are retired, America will have hundreds of thousands of tons of those blades to dispose of. Where will we put them all?
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that oil rigs being drilled into the floor of the ocean are any better than putting in wind turbines. But let’s not pretend that wind farms are somehow a net benefit to the local marine life and the rest of the environment. Everything comes at a price and there’s no such thing as free energy.
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