… under the Green New Deal, they don’t like clean, beautiful natural gas. They don’t like anything. They don’t know what they like. They sort of like wind, even though it kills all the birds. You want to see a bird cemetery? Go under a windmill sometime….

You know, in California, you go to jail for five years if you kill a bald eagle. If you go under a windmill, you see them all over the place.

– Donald Trump, “Remarks on Promoting Energy Infrastructure and Economic Growth,” Hackberry, Louisiana, May 14, 2019

Back in 1997, I published a long Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute, “Renewable Energy: Not Cheap, Not ‘Green’.” A section of that study, “The ‘Avian Mortality’ Problem,” addressed what President Trump recently said (above) 22 years later.…

There was shock, surprise, and humor in the media when Trump not only denounced wind “mills” for intermittency, lack of predictable value, property losses, and bird kills but also topped his discussion with

“They say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one, okay?”

Is President Trump correct in his five critical points? Even the last one? Or is it possible, as Trevor Noah suggested, turbines might be the only things that don’t cause cancer.

1. Intermittency

Electricity must be consumed the moment it is produced. Storage to allow deviations is prohibitively expensive in all but the rarest of settings. And it has always been this way.

Trump said, “Honey I’d like to watch TV tonight: are the turbines working?” And then his quotation from the Washington Republican fundraiser:

“Is the wind blowing?…

“Despite the wind industry’s vigorous denials, recent research is largely consistent with Dr. Nina Pierpont’s original description of symptoms resulting from exposure to wind turbines, which she termed Wind Turbine Syndrome.”

“Noise reports conducted by wind industry acousticians frequently indicate that no scientifically valid studies have shown a causative or direct relationship between modeled or measured levels of wind turbine noise and adverse health effects. Such a conclusion reflects an overly narrow and self-serving understanding of causation, and ignores the role of mediators between noise and health, which include annoyance, stress, anxiety, and sleep disturbance.”

– Jerry Punch, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Michigan State University. Letter to Ohio Power Siting Board regarding the proposed Seneca Wind Project. January 15, 2019.

Industrial wind turbines as a “green” source of electricity is increasingly recognized as oxymoronic.…

“The Icebreaker six-turbine wind project, now foreign owned, is not a ‘gusher,’ the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of wind, as termed. It is a massive industrialization of Lake Erie, from which none will recover for a very long time.”

“We respectfully ask the Ohio Power Siting Board to examine the weight of all evidence–not hearsay, propaganda, or wishful thinking. If so, the staff-report caveats for approval (July 3, 2018) will prove insurmountable.”

Abstract: Icebreaker Wind, formerly LEEDCo (Lake Erie Development Company), has failed to materially advance its proposal of six-turbine project offshore Cleveland, reflecting an Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) meeting at City Hall, July 19, 2018. Key business, recreational, and conservation organizations of Cleveland, passionate members of the public, as well as representatives of concern from PA, NY, and Ontario, line up to protect Lake Erie from the taxpayer/ratepayer boondoggle.…