The truth about wind turbines - how bad are they?

this episode is brought to you by brilliant click the link in the description below wind power is one of the most cost effective fastest growing and arguably underused sources of energy currently available to us it's also perceived as one of the greenest because wind turbines don't produce any greenhouse gases or pollutants while they're in operation but that's the rub when they're not in operation meaning getting them in the ground and working out what to do with them once we take them down they do have an environmental impact with wind power adoption on the rise and turbines popping up along our coastlines and open spaces what are the environmental impacts in the grand scheme of things how bad are they and is there anything we can do to mitigate it i'm matt farrell welcomed undecided [Music] it's not too difficult to see why wind power is one of the most popular methods of energy generation and has been for centuries as long as there's enough wind to make them turn turbines can be installed more or less anywhere there's a bit of free space from fields and mountain ranges to way out at sea making them ideal for both large economies trying to decarbonize as well as remote communities needing an easy source of power they're simple to maintain and should last for decades they're cheap to run and their footprint is actually relatively small despite their size according to a survey of large-scale wind farms by the national renewable energy laboratory in the united states which has the highest wind power capacity in the world behind china less than one acre per megawatt of power output capacity is disturbed permanently and less than 3.5 acres per megawatt are temporarily disturbed during construction costs are also coming down all the time with many governments now offering incentives to encourage more uptake although it doesn't produce as much power as some other sources it's responsible for around five percent of global electricity produced in 2018. wind offers enormous potential especially when deployed offshore which is where a lot of the focus is at the moment although offshore wind only accounts for about 0.3 percent of the total energy generation worldwide it's capable of making a much bigger contribution according to the international energy agency or the iea if we built wind farms on all usable offshore sites worldwide sticking to certain conditions like no further than 60 kilometers off the coast and in waters no deeper than 60 meters they could generate more than the world's entire current electricity demand on their own but this would mean huge swaths of wind turbines popping up on practically every spare stretch of coastline and would we want that well probably not but it does show what we can do with the wind power if we really went all out with the technology and while a world completely scattered with turbines and every suitable spot may ultimately solve our clean energy problem what we often forget is the amount of work it takes to put them there in the first place both offshore and onshore and this is where some of those arguments against when's green credentials comes into play so what are we talking about well there's a lot that goes into preparing the ground for turbines like excavating for foundations bringing all the components to the site a lot of concrete is typically needed and onshore farms will often need new service roads to be put in and the list goes on plus a lot of these jobs are done using diesel-powered machines a good example is the world's largest offshore wind farm which is now under construction off the coast of the uk which promises to produce enough electricity to power 4.5 million homes which is approximately 5 percent of the country's total electricity demand using some of the world's most powerful turbines this all sounds great but it also means miles of cabling converter stations vegetation clearance land drainage roads grid connections and it goes on and with onshore farms despite the relatively small footprint that we talked about earlier there's still little else you can do with the land between the turbines other than farming and grazing when there's often little choice but to build these huge structures in rural areas you can begin to see why people talk about the industrialization of the countryside winds environmental impact has also been called into question in other ways there have been complaints from some people who live and work near wind farms about the noise the turbines make in other places birds and bats have been discovered flying into them and this is thought to have contributed to a noticeable decline in the numbers of certain species in the u.s alone it's estimated that as many as half a million birds are killed in wind turbine collisions each year and with wind energy capacity due to increase significantly in the coming years this figure could reach almost one and a half million a year but things are never that simple while the skies may be suffering there's also evidence that offshore wind farms can be a boon to ocean species a study by kayla slavic at the helmholtz center for materials and coastal research in germany found that the underwater platforms are having an unexpected and beneficial benefit to blue mussels a typical wind turbine can support about four metric tons of the shellfish and they also act as a marine preservation area since fishing and bottom trolling isn't allowed for safety reasons essentially they're creating sanctuaries for sea life the offshore wind farm near block island in the u.s is seeing similar wildlife flourishing around the base of the turbines despite some negatives generally the world's public tends to lean in favor of more renewable energy technologies to fight climate change including wind power just as long as those turbines aren't built anywhere near where they live the trouble is with onshore farms and heavily populated countries it can be difficult to avoid people entirely especially when they're not afraid to put up some resistance in germany installations have declined sharply due to lack of suitable land and the rise of people successfully campaigning against plans to build those turbines in their areas it's dealt a blow to their carbon reduction plans another dilemma is what to do with these turbines once they come to the end of their lifetimes how exactly do you dispose of these structures when they can be as big as a skyscraper and there might be hundreds of them on a single farm the good news is that around 85 of wind turbines components can be recycled or reused from the copper wiring and electronics to the gearing mechanisms but the same can't really be said for the blades which are usually made from a composite material such as fiberglass or carbon fiber depending on their age these materials are strong enough to withstand the extreme weather conditions that the turbines are often subjected to but light enough so the turbines can actually turn but when they need to be decommissioned there's little else you can do with them but to bury them in a landfill or burn them through a process called pyrolysis the landfill option is obviously not very eco-friendly especially when the blades can be longer than the wing of a boeing 747 and weigh up to eight tons each this means that they have to be transported one at a time and that's a lot of truck journeys plus there's a lot of heavy machinery needed to cut up the blades before they're buried with pyrolysis the blades are chopped up but then they're placed into high temperature ovens to break down the composite fibers this creates a material that can be used to make things such as paints and glues but the process requires a lot of energy so even though it can be thought of as a form of recycling it's not all that green all of this is a big issue at the moment because the turbines that were installed in the wind power boom of the 1990s and 2000s are coming to an end of life now or are already there it's likely only to get worse in the future too as installations of wind turbines worldwide have increased by more than five times over the past decade so unless we come up with new ways of getting rid of them we're going to have an even bigger landfill problem further down the line in that case then maybe we should start thinking about making turbines from something else like let's look at windmills which is what turbines evolved from they were historically composed of wood and other sustainable materials but it wasn't until the 1980s that the composites became the standard choice we're now seeing incredible things being done with high-strength wood in the construction sector such as huge tower blocks and even some of the venues for the tokyo olympics and some believe that we should be looking at wood again for wind power in sweden they have just built the world's first wooden wind turbine tower and plans are in place to scale this up in the future in fact there's a lot going on to repair some of the damage to wind power's reputation as a green energy source for starters it appears that there may be an alternative to burying or burning those used turbine parts after all washington-based global fiberglass solutions has found a way of grinding up large pieces of plastic composites into tiny pellets which then can be used in construction and manufacturing for those newer blades a company called carbon fiber recycling has found a way to recycle carbon fiber waste which was actually tested on wind turbines when they were doing their research their process separates the carbon fiber from the epoxy resin that was also used to make the blades the carbon fiber is then chopped up into a form where it can then be used in a number of different industries and the resin is turned into a fuel that goes back into powering the company's machines so nothing ends up in a landfill in the netherlands they're recycling in a different way they've been using decommissioned blades to make slides tunnels and ramps for children's playgrounds as well as bus stops and public seating while in denmark plans have been submitted to build a bridge out of composite materials that were once part of a turbine elsewhere in europe a consortium of wind and chemical industry bodies has come up with a way of turning used fiberglass blades into a material that can be used in cement production reducing the co2 emissions by around 16 the blades have to be broken up into tiny bits first but this can be done at the site where the turbines were installed so there's no need for that heavy transport and in poland an urban tech startup has pioneered a new approach to wind power by building panels made up of vertical rows of small turbines although this is more suitable for smaller applications rather than powering huge grids they're designed to eliminate the main disadvantages of wind power being silent quick and easy to set up without being a danger to wildlife or making a huge impact on the environment it's important to remember that we'll never have a 100 green source of energy there'll always be some kind of environmental impact no matter what we do even with its current downsides if you look at the life cycle cost analysis of different forms of energy generation wind turbines are only beat out by hydropower so yes maybe wind power does come with more downsides than many of us first realized but the impact of increased investment in this source of energy at a time where we urgently need to lower our carbon emissions is undeniable imagine how much better we can make that lca with innovations and new approaches to materials and disposal going on right now there's a lot of smart people trying to solve these problems and if you want to be one of them you can get a jump start on that with the electricity and magnetism course at brilliant the heart of a wind turbine is all about electric motors and massive magnets and this course walks you through all of the basics it's really helped me with a better understanding for the underlying principles i know not everyone may be into learning about magnets but they have over 60 courses including topics in mathematics statistics and computer science if you're like me and learn by doing rather than having to memorize formulas then you're going to love brilliant they teach all of the concepts through fun and interactive challenges which help you to understand the why of something not just the how it's my favorite part of brilliant go to brilliant.org undecided to sign up for free the first 200 people will get 20 off their annual premium membership thanks to brilliant and to all of you for supporting the channel so what's your take jump in the comments and let me know what you think about wind power and as always a special thank you to all my patrons some of who actually helped me with this script all of your support is really helping to make this possible if you like this video be sure to check out 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Channel: Undecided with Matt Ferrell

Views: 847,777

Keywords: wind turbine, wind turbine (industry), wind turbine installation, wind turbine noise, wind turbine recycling, recycling wind turbine blades, turbine, wind, turbine (engine category), wind power, wind power (industry), wind turbines, wind turbines sound, climbing, energy, renewable energy, solar power, sustainable, turbines, undecided with matt farrell solar, undecided with matt ferrell, wind farm, wind energy, climate change

Id: WsswrLKlinU

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 18 2020