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Wind turbines are widely disliked by the general public in all countries where they are erected. They are a blight on the landscape, and their noise when operating is unpleasant, and even harmful, for those who live nearby. They are notorious for killing large numbers of birds, including endangered species such as eagles.
Recent research in Sweden has revealed that wind farms cause even more environmental damage than previously thought, notably through the erosion of toxic chemicals from the blades, which are dispersed into the environment surrounding the turbines.
Many thanks to our Swedish correspondent LN for translating this article from Samhällsnytt:
Study shows: Wind turbines can be major environmental offenders
by Mats Dagerlind March 16, 2024
Wind power is marketed as the climate and environmentally friendly energy option. However, there is a growing body of evidence that this is a truth with major modifications. A new study has now been published which, in addition to what is already known, indicates that wind power is associated with pollution in the form of high levels of hazardous substances around wind farms.
The yet-to-be-published study almost didn’t see the light of day. Strong political and economic forces do not want the image of wind power as the environmentally and climate-friendly alternative to produce electricity to be tarnished by further negative publicity.
As a result, pressure was applied to withdraw funding for the study. However, the researchers at the Universities of Gothenburg and Linköping managed to find money elsewhere, and the study is now complete. And its contents reveal why some were prepared to go to great lengths to stop it.
The list of disadvantages of wind power is long
Wildlife damage has been reported in the past; birds — including protected eagles — are decapitated by rotor blades. Marine life is disturbed by offshore wind turbines.
Worn-out rotor blades cannot be recycled and accumulate in large scrap yards without anyone knowing how to dispose of them. Nature and recreational values are destroyed in the vicinity of wind farms, so that the tourism industry is affected and other outdoor activities cannot be practised.
The local environment is destroyed for residents by the noise of the wind turbines. Those trying to move away find that the market value of their houses has dropped dramatically. And so on.
In addition, wind turbines have low reliability and only produce electricity when the wind is blowing. When there is too much wind, they produce too much electricity instead, which is also a problem, and wind operators are then offered tax money to switch off turbines. Storing wind-generated electricity is not possible today nor in the foreseeable future.
Now the list of poisoning of flora and fauna is expanding
The new study adds new disadvantages to the list. They are also of an uncomfortable nature, as they involve the pollution and poisoning of nature on land and in waterways, pollutants that can find their way into the food chains of animals and humans.
The findings are so serious and numerous that the researchers behind the study wonder why this has not been investigated before. The answer may lie in the fact that neither the wind power industry nor the various players in the green political movement have wanted to find out what the situation is.
The researchers have found that dangerous particles from wind turbine blades are probably an environmental problem that other researchers and authorities have chosen to underestimate. Helen Karlsson is an adjunct assistant professor of occupational and environmental medicine at Linköping University and one of the initiators of the study.
She says that she became interested in the issue of erosion from wind turbine blades when she realised that there were discrepancies between the wind power industry’s figures and other calculations. Initially, she and her colleagues did not believe that they would find as many rotor blade fragments as they did.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency tried to stop the critical study
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency is an authority that is officially supposed to be neutral, but often acts as a party in climate and environment-related political debates. It is clearly in favour of wind power and reports accordingly. It has distributed a lot of money to research projects that support the agency’s line, but the application for money for the current and potentially uncomfortable study was flatly rejected, and it also tried to discredit as frivolous the well-reputed researchers in the field.
In this context, the Authority’s website states that the “few existing measurements and scientific studies do not show that wind turbines are an important source of microplastic emissions”. While the wording should be perceived as reassuring, on a slower reading it recognises both that almost no studies have been carried out and that the extent of the emissions is not known at all.
In addition to Helen Karlsson, the research team also includes the physicist Karin Mattsson and Professor Joachim Sturve. Both are active at the University of Gothenburg.
More toxins and microplastics than expected
The trio say they were surprised by the amount of erosion fragments found when they investigated the area around one of Sweden’s largest wind farms. This is contrary to the information available so far, which the researchers find strange, and give the authorities a failing grade, considering the size of the budget for wind power research.
The trio of researchers have found no fewer than 50 different chemicals in the particles collected from soil, water and plants around the large wind farm. The likelihood is high that they originate from the wind turbines, and this needs to be better substantiated, the researchers say, given the aggressive further expansion of wind power that is planned.
Inconvenient wind power study suppressed
These are facts and concerns that the climate movement does not want to reach the general public. They are already struggling with increasing wind power scepticism among the electorate, and if it increases further, it may result in further changes to energy policy at the ballot box. The current Tidö government has already altered the balance of the energy mix by opening the door to reinvestment in nuclear power.
Within the climate movement there are several previous examples of attempts to suppress research results that have not turned out as hoped. The green organisation Vindval chose to lock up a 2017 study that demonstrated major disruptions to reindeer husbandry by reindeer fleeing areas with wind turbines, instead of publishing it. It was eventually leaked anyway after a complaint to the Ombudsman. There are more examples.
Want to conduct a follow-up in-depth study
The researchers behind the current study on toxic and dangerous emissions from wind turbines state that they want to follow it up with in-depth analyses to determine the extent of the environmental problem. In 2019, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency produced a report on the release of microplastics into the environment. It chose to look at a number of potential sources but refrained from looking at whether wind farms could be one of them.
This oversight has been criticised by Madeleine Staaf Kura, an enthusiastic member of the association Motvind Sverige, which organises an increasing number of Swedes who are tired of land and water being filled with ever larger and more densely placed volumes of propellers on pillars.
Staaf has proposed that all rotor blades should be weighed when they are new and then again when they are worn out. This would give a fairly good estimate of how much material has been loosened and worn away and ended up in the environment. The call has so far fallen on deaf ears.
Banned toxins in rotor blades
The importance of finding out about this is reinforced by the fact that the now banned endocrine-disrupting PFAS substances [Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances] have been found in some rotor blades, mainly of older models. Large quantities of such rotor blades are stored in various locations, waiting for the problem to be resolved of how to safely destroy them. Toxic bisphenol A is another substance that has been found in rotor blades, although not in huge quantities.
The Swedish Chemicals Agency (Kemikalieinspektionen) recognises that there are major gaps in knowledge about the nature and quantity of hazardous substances in wind turbine rotor blades and how much of this ends up in nature and the food chain. However, it chooses to believe that this is not a major problem rather than to apply the precautionary principle and advise against further massive expansion of wind power until more is known.
