Arguments Against Wind Power by the Anti-Wind MovementThe following is a piece written by Professor David Bellamy It highlights and discusses the arguments used by the anti-wind movement in their attempt to stop the placement of wind farms, especially along the coast.Bellamy's material comes from an article published in the Geelong Advertiser on January 14th, 2004. 
Bellamy at the 2003 Forest Rally Melbourne |
What's behind Bellamy's anti-wind stance? Bellamy and the anti-wind movement? Official Bellamy anti-wind page Bellamy Backs Anti-Wind Myths 1. Wind farms don't spoil the scenery 2. Wind turbines do not harm the countryside 3. Wind farms are a viable source of electricity 4. Wind farms will let us close conventional and nuclear power stations 5. Wind farms will help stop global warming 6. We do indeed need wind farms 7. Wind farms produce free electricity 8. Wind farms impact people very little 9. Wind farms provide jobs and don't affect tourism 10. People do want wind farms> Dr David Suzuki respondsInternal Links Back to the Clean Power Page More on Wind Power Home |
||||||||||||||||||||||
What's behind Bellamy's anti-wind stance?Bellamy comes from the United Kingdom, a country where humans have destroyed the natural ecosystems and turned almost the entire country into farmland.To people like Bellamy, a bald hill covered in grass is a prime example of "unspoilt nature" by British standards. When Bellamy visited Australia last year, we talked about his answer to our energy production problems. In his eyes the answer is wave power. He may see investment in wind as wasted money that should be spent elsewhere. In his home country, Bellamy has been strongly defending bald grassy hills from becoming locations for wind farms, working with groups like the Country Guardians. He has now been courted by the anti-wind movement here, who operate under the name of Coastal Guardians and copy Country Guardians in the way they operate. Top |
Bellamy and the anti-wind movementThe anti-wind movement is largely made up of four sorts of people.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 1 - Wind farms don't spoil the sceneryBellamy's argument:Wind farms have a fundamental visual impact on the landscape. Current models, with 70-metre hub heights and 60-plus metre rotor diameters, are taller than 30-storey buildings and as wide as a 747 jet. Even larger models are planned. Because they require exposed and open countryside, wind farms can be seen for many kilometres. The development of wind farms also usually involves the construction of many miles of visually intrusive service roads, transmission lines and pylons. This is because most wind power sites are in areas remote from the grid. Power Generation on the cost - what would you prefer.  Beautiful beach huts on Calshot beach, Hampshire UK  Pitty about the power plant behind them.  Compare a coastal wind farm on the right. What is worse for the coast? We feel the choice is easy. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: The visual impact simply depends on your point of view. Some people find the sight of wind farms inspiring; others don't like the look of them. Bellamy uses images of 30-storey buildings and jumbo jets to create a negative impression. A visit to a modern wind farm quickly shows how inappropriate these associations are. In Victoria wind farms are being constructed close to the grid to save money. The Victorian Wind Atlas shows good wind sites within 10 kilometres of the existing high voltage grid network. Roads are built to install and maintain the wind farms. These are usually built over the top of farmers' existing track networks. Compared to the gaping holes left in the ground by coal mining and the massive power stations used to burn the coal, wind farms look very attractive. Wind farms have potential to play a key role in protecting our coastal countryside as coast all along Australia succumbs to intensive housing development. The good thing about wind farms is that they require a buffer from residential housing.  Wind farm on Victoria's coast near Port Fairy |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 2 - Wind turbines don't harm the countrysideBellamy's argument:Construction of these enormous industrial sites involves considerable environmental disruption and upheaval. Site access roads must support the large cranes needed for turbine construction, maintenance and decommissioning. Sites can require about 2000 tonnes of rock and a kilometre of access road. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: In Victoria wind farms are placed on agricultural land. Some farmland is converted to road and some is covered by the base of the turbines. Often roads are built over the existing track network. In real terms 1% of the land areas on a site is used by a wind farm, having no effect on a farmer's operations while providing finance that can be used to make a farm more sustainable. In Australia the biggest threat to our farmland is salinity and erosion. 15 million hectares is under threat of destruction from salinity within the next 50 years, an area about twice the size of Tasmania. Putting this in perspective, a 1% impact on farming land is nothing compared to the real issues of salinity and erosion that are destroying our agricultural land. Note the language Bellamy uses: "industrial sites" for places where things are built, "disruption and upheaval" for digging. The Age recently reported that 16 farmers will be forced to stop farming due to the Hazelwood power station expanding its coal mine. Some farmers have signed their properties over; others will be forcibly acquired. Compare this to the happy farmer at Codrington, whose family benefits from the income derived from the wind farm and the tour business that they now operate. 
Source: Contact Simon Coutts The Age: Challenging the powers that be Check out: ACF's salinity page Landcare's salinity links |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 3 - Wind farms are a good source of electricityBellamy's argument:Wind farms produce relatively small amounts of energy. This is because of the inherent difficulties of extracting power from the wind and because wind turbines cannot work if the wind is too light or too strong. Studies have found that wind turbines produce 25-30% of their theoretical capacity (i.e. the amount they would generate in ideal conditions). Two of the biggest wind farms in Europe are close to each other in Powys, Wales. Between them, they have 159 turbines and cover thousands of acres of land. Together they take a year to produce less than four days' output from a single 2000 MW conventional power station. Together, they have an output averaging 20 MW. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: Stating that wind farms "produce relatively small amounts of energy" is a meaningless argument. There are only a few wind farms at the moment. If we build more wind farms, the amount of energy they produce will increase. The ammount of power individual wind turbines can produce is increasing as well, with 3 mega watt units now available. Belmany states "Studies have found that wind turbines produce only 25-30% of their theoretical capacity". Wind does not blow all the time, and one average energy from wind farms is available 20-30% of the time. Wind farms are planned and built with this fact in mind. Likewise solar power doesn't work at night or on a cloudy day, wave power ceases in a calm sea, and hydro dams run dry if we don't get enough rain. All have their limitations, which the grid must accommodate by providing suitably diverse sources of power. Different availablities are compared for differrent sources of power on the table below. Bellamy comments "because wind turbines cannot work if wind is too light or too strong". Thats why sites that have constant winds of the right speed are preferred. New turnbines are being developed for low wind environments and wind farms can and do work in extreme wind environments such as Mason base in Antartica. Wind turbines are actually quite good at extracting energy from the wind as it passes, converting around 49% of the wind's kinetic energy to electricity in the swept area. By contrast the efficiency of a black coal plant is around 35%, while a brown coal plant (brown coal or lignite is the type of coal we burn in Victoria) operates at about 29% . Availablity of energy from different types of production sources The Australian Wind Energy Association
Australian Wind Energy Association Bellamy's comment on low power production is addressed when we cover Myth 4 below. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 4 - Wind farms will let us close conventional and nuclear power stationsBellamy's argument:Because the wind does not blow all the time and is difficult to predict, it cannot provide a reliable source of power. This means that conventional and nuclear power stations can't simply be turned off just because wind turbines are being put up. Instead they have to be available as back-up - either running at less than full capacity or in spinning reserve - in case the wind drops too low or blows too hard for wind turbines to function. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: Here's a vital point missed by most anti-wind people and many pro-wind people. Wind power CAN replace coal power stations. There is an important figure we need to consider and that is the generation that we can guarantee from our wind power. This figure is somewhere around 10% of the turbines' theoretical output. From here the equation is simple. If we want to close down a 200 MW coal power station, we put in 2,000 MW worth of wind generation, giving a guaranteed 200 MW. Just as we do with coal power stations, we can use gas power plants (CCGT) to back up the base load and meet fluctuations in user demand. Australia's Eastern states are connected by a national grid. We could spread wind generating capacity from South Australia to Queensland to meet our needs. It is unlikely that wind would stop blowing over an entire nation at any one time. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 5 - Wind farms will stop global warmingBellamy's argument:The current levels of growth in industrial development, electricity use, road and air traffic will swamp any impact it might have on global warming. The fact that wind farms do little to combat global warming is highlighted by the situation in Denmark, which, although it has the most developed wind power infrastructure in Europe, still has one of the continent's highest per capita level of carbon dioxide emissions. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: Again it depends on one's viewpoint. Every wind farm that goes in means that the power generated doesn't have to come from somewhere else, and in Australia this means coal or gas, which both produce gases responsible for the greenhouse effect. If we put in enough wind power and other renewable energy generation, we can close down all our coal stations. Wind power is an important component of clean energy production. We must support this development and call apon government to increase significantly the incentices for installing more. In his efforts to stop wind power, Bellamy is ensuring that humanity will never be given the opportunity to combat global warming. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 6 - We need wind farmsBellamy's argument:We do not need wind farms. There are many other more cost-effective ways to combat global warming and provide us with energy. These include making present power stations more efficient, controlling traffic and petrol consumption, developing other types of renewable energy and, most importantly, investing heavily in energy conservation. Calculations show that the amount of energy produced by a 750 KW turbine could be saved by insulating the roofs of fewer than 500 houses and that saving pollution by insulation is 55 times more cost-effective than saving it by wind turbines. Overall studies show that energy saving could feasibly and cost-effectively cut the amount of energy used in the UK by 30 per cent, making a significant impact on global warming and eliminating the need for wind turbines. Ploughing the subsidies given to wind power into promoting this scale of energy conservation would also create many tens of thousands of local jobs. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: The path to a sustainable energy future has two key elements, namely demand reduction and clean energy production. Both need to be pursued at the same time and no government is doing enough. Bellamy believes in "other types of renewable energy.". We maintain that a sustainable energy future needs clean energy from somewhere, and that currently wind power is the most cost effective of the clean alternatives. There are other cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gases, such as energy demand reduction by insulating houses. Instead, we see governments pouring billions of dollars into building roads while public transport languishes, or allowing the building and sale of houses that lack good insulation or solar passive design but have air-conditioning, or extending the life of our most polluting coal power station to 2025. However, some governments support wind power as part of the clean energy solution. They need to be encouraged for taking a step in the right direction and we need to push them further. If we don't, the danger is that any more initiatives by government in the direction of renewables or clean power might be stifled by the pro coal, oil and nuclear industries. Bellamy claims it is possible to "cut the amount of energy used in the UK by 30 %," which is highly encouraging. Nonetheless we still have to find ways to produce the remaining 70% of power in a clean way. Wind power can play a major role in this. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 7 - Wind farms produce free electricityBellamy's argument:The development of wind power around the world has been heavily subsidised and grant-aided. In the UK, the wholesale price of electricity from wind turbines has been up to four times the price of conventionally-generated electricity. The cost of this system is passed on to electricity consumers and already costs tens of millions of pounds a year. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: There is no such thing as a "free lunch," everyone knows that. Wind power is still the most cost-effective way to produce clean energy, and it has been getting cheaper. When other forms of clean power become cheaper than wind, we can use them instead. The current price of wind power is 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour (c/kwh). A household pays between 13.68 and 20.41 c/kwh (check out Origin Energy's home pricing page, put in your postcode). (Note that South Australians pay 25 c/kwh.) The reason wind energy does not yet compete with coal is that coal itself is subsidised. Its costs are borne by the environment. Passing on the costs of the damage that coal power is doing to our environment is part of the reason people have proposed a carbon tax. If carbon taxes were put in place with the impact on the environment properly reflected, wind power and other sources of clean power would become cheap, and coal and petrol would become unaffordable. However even without including the environmental damage caused by coal into the cost of producing energy from coal, wind farms are only five to ten years away from being able to compete on cost with new coal power plants. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 8 - Wind farms have no impact on peopleBellamy's argument:Many people living near wind turbines find their lives are blighted by the background noise of the turbines. Wind turbines also produce other annoying effects, such as the disruption of television reception, shadow flicker, strobing and light reflections. Turbines have been known to catch on fire and to throw lumps of ice from their blades. In the most extreme cases, people have experienced stress and other mental problems.  Brown coal power plant in the Latrobe valley Victoria. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: The best thing I can recommend here is that you go and visit a modern wind farm, to see how little impact they really have. But be careful in case the turbines burst into flame or throw lumps of ice at you. ;) 
Tours at Codrington Wind Farm (between Port Fairy and Portland, southwest Victoria) |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 9 - Wind farms provide jobs and do not affect tourismBellamy's argument:After the initial employment opportunities provided in its construction, a wind farm actually requires few people for day-to-day maintenance. If the subsidies going into renewables were diverted to energy conservation, tens of thousands of jobs would also be created at a stroke, and far more emissions would be saved. There is evidence that wind farms could threaten the tourist industry, a vital part of the rural economy. Many tourism agencies have criticised wind farm developments and it is more than likely that once wind turbines stop being a novelty and start to dominate our landscapes in ever-increasing numbers, they will drive tourists away. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: Tourism 36% of Victorians surveyed said they would be more likely to visit an area if it had a wind farm. Only 8% of Victorians say they would be less likely to visit an area if it had a wind farm. Just as tourists deal with the massive development in place at our existing coastal tourist areas such as the 12 Apostles (the information centres, thousands of people, power poles, buses, cars, roads, helicopters, light planes) wind farm turbines quietly rotating in the distance would barely be noticed. Many people find wind farms attractive and symbols of hope for the future. Jobs Bellamy gives the impression that there are few jobs in wind energy. The most significant jobs will come to those countries willing to take the initiative and lead wind energy manufacturing in their region. Take a look at this article by Bob Burton (Inter Press Service, January 26, 2004): "Race Heats Up for Wind Energy The race among India, Japan, New Zealand and Australia to become the dominant manufacturer of wind energy components in the Asia-Pacific is likely to intensify, now that an Australian government committee has slowed down on ambitious targets for renewable energy. The expansion of the industry in the region is inevitable given the wider room for competition, says the director of communications for the Australian Wind Energy Association (AusWEA), Dr Karl Mallon. "In the wind sector, Japan, New Zealand and Korea have all got aspirations to become major manufacturing centres. India already has significant manufacturing capacity while Japan has major companies like Mitsubishi who have identified that they want to enter the wind energy market," he said. In the last five years global wind power capacity has quadrupled, representing an annual growth rate of 30 percent. In a report for Greenpeace Australia, Dr Rob Passey noted that in 2002 alone, 7 billion dollars of wind projects were built." |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Myth 10 - People want wind farmsBellamy's argument:Many, many people do not want wind farms. One symptom of this dislike is the fact that estate agents report that wind farms can dramatically decrease property values. Top |
Futureenergy.org's response: A number of surveys have shown that people here in Australia want wind farms as a source of producing clean power. No one forces a land owner to have a wind farm. Farmers choose to have them on their property, for which they get paid. A 2003 US study found no such decreases in property prices. At Esperance in WA, residents complained when a wind farm was decommissioned at the end of its life, and demanded one turbine be left in place. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr David Suzuki respondsDr David Suzuki sets out some simple reasons why Bellamy's stance on wind power is flawed.Top |
February 11, 2004: I was stunned to read David Bellamy's tirade against wind power. I don't know of a wind power supporter (and I am one) who would claim all our energy needs could be fulfilled by wind alone. Just as solar energy only works when it's a sunny day, wind is gusty. We advocate efficiency to reduce demand and a diversity of renewable alternatives of which wind is one. Bellamy suggests wind power can only compete with subsidies but what of the perverse subsidies in the billions for the fossil fuel industry that has been having windfall profits for years since the first oil embargoes? Not only does the fossil fuel sector receive massive perverse subsidies, they don't pay for the full share of their costs for air pollution, smog created deaths, asthma and climate change. If the economics were adjusted to internalize such costs, fossil fuel would be outrageously expensive. David Suzuki |