“… the scope of the threats, from leaking gear box oil, turbine failure and combustion, tower collapse, blade shears, to re-exposure of contaminants and toxins, physical displacement of currents and food flow, acoustic interference to life in the lake, siltation affects in immediate vicinity of turbines, interference to Homeland Security, death of wildlife, property value impacts, commercial and recreational fishing impacts, and more, for intermittent power at best, … I urge the EPA to permanently end such folly through a permanent moratorium on offshore wind farm development in Lake Erie, and all the Great Lakes.” (Richard Davenport to US EPA, September 3, 2019)

For decades, mainstream environmentalists have sought and received offshore moratoria for offshore hydrocarbon development. With wind turbines, the potential damage to the ecosystem is much more pronounced than with oil and gas projects in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico.…

Editor Note: This post is part of the three-part series with Part I yesterday on Biofuels and Solar and Part III tomorrow on The Big Picture.

“Environmentalists are focused on banning plastic straws! Their inability to differentiate between imaginary, wildly inflated ecological problems and not the here-and-now issues of renewable energies is what the UN powers should address–but will not.”

Mandated, subsidized wind energy requires millions of acres for turbines and ultra-long transmission lines, plus billions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, rare earth metals and fiberglass. The turbines produce intermittent, unreliable electricity that (absent subsidies) costs much more than coal or gas-fueled electricity – and must be backed by fossil fuel generators that must go from standby to full-power many times a day, very inefficiently, every time the wind stops blowing.…

“LEEDCo/Icebreaker would do well to abandon its hoped-for permit from the OPSB. The obstacles and problems have been pointed out repeatedly by experts, individuals, birding organizations, ecologists, in consultations, letters, formal legal presentations; enough to fill volumes. Its ten-year-long attempts to capture subsidies while overlooking viable and responsible care for the environment are unsustainable.”

“This proposal has so many indisputable strikes against it,” says Bryan Ralston, president of the Lake Erie Marine Trades Association. “We’re calling for the OPSB to reject it outright. It cannot be justified economically. It will raise, not lower, consumer’s electrical rates. It cannot survive without taxpayer subsidies. It’s an environmental disaster and it will become an industrial size turbine graveyard in the future.”

Over the years, I have followed the aspirations of Lorry Wagner’s LEEDCo wind project—now the Icebreaker Wind project of Fred Olsen Renewables, Inc.…

More than just audible sound, grinding, whomping, blade pass whooshes, an ever-present hum, industrial wind turbines have a silent, below audible impact. It is not like a day contamination/harm at work where people can go home at night for relief. With industrial wind projects literally engulfing homes and rural areas, there is little or no escape.

Wind turbines appear to be at the apex of producing human discomfort, annoyance, and harm. In particular, infrasound and low-frequency noise (ILFN) harm because of impacts unique to this concoction of noise.

More than just audible sound, grinding, whomping, blade pass whooshes, an ever-present hum, industrial wind turbines have a silent, below audible impact. It is not like a day contamination/harm at work where people can go home at night for relief. With industrial wind projects literally engulfing homes and rural areas, there is little or no escape.…