This brochure provides a quick, but informative, summary of the key issues pertaining to wind energy development in Virginia and the Appalachian region. The document can serve as a start point for others preparing similar information materials for their community. Click on the link(s) at the bottom of this page to view the final layout including photos.

Wishful Thinking

Wind energy is promoted as an alternative to dependence on foreign oil, an alternative to mountain top removal coal mining, an alternative to fossil fuel combustion, and part of the solution to global warming. And it's free!

Reality check

Wind energy is expensive and dependent on subsidies and incentives, it provides relatively little in terms of energy and air quality benefits, it has significant wildlife impacts, and its development threatens our remaining wild landscape. Yet public perception has been carefully managed - benefit claims are wildly exaggerated - and we are distracted from real solutions to our energy problems. Before we allow this new industry to transform our mountain landscape we need to take an objective look at the costs and benefits.

The large footprint of a low-capacity energy resource

Wind energy projects in the Appalachian Mountains are typically built in strings of about seven turbines per mile along ridgelines. Because wind energy is diffuse and intermittent, very large numbers of turbines and many miles of ridgeline are required to provide even small amounts of electricity. Approximately 3,000 two-megawatt wind turbines would be needed to satisfy 10% of Virginia's projected annual electricity demand in 2020. This would require about 425 miles of ridgeline development - a distance greater than the length of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain in Virginia.

The industrial scale of modern turbines

The largest turbines currently proposed for construction on Appalachian Ridges are about 550‐feet tall - to the top of the rotor. The 131 turbines proposed for construction in the George Washington National Forest on the western side of the Shenandoah Valley (FreedomWorks, LLC) would be 440‐feet tall, occupying 18 miles of ridgeline.

Ecosystem harm: forest habitat loss

Unlike most areas where commercial‐scale wind energy development occurs, wind projects on Appalachian ridges almost always require extensive forest clearing for turbine sites, access roads, and transmission corridors. 3‐5 acres are typically cleared per turbine site to provide room for construction and to reduce wind turbulence during operation. Loss of interior forest habitat is even greater, 15‐20 acres per turbine. Interior forest, defined as forest habitat that is more than 100 meters from a clearing, is essential for maintaining viable populations of many birds and other wildlife.

Direct impact on birds and bats

Wind projects on forested Appalachian ridges have the highest bird and bat fatalities documented worldwide. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has advised wind project developers to avoid bird and bat concentration areas, and has repeatedly recommended that developers in the Appalachian region prepare Habitat Conservation Plans and obtain Incidental Take Permits as provided by the Endangered Species Act. No developers have complied. The bat problem is extreme; high bat mortality has been found at all Appalachian wind projects where the problem has been studied.

Wind power and energy independence

Wind energy proponents insist that wind energy development is essential if the nation is to achieve energy independence. For example, FreedomWorks, LLC, the company that proposes to construct 131 turbines in Virginia's George Washington National Forest, lists the following objective in its Mission Statement: "Create and maintain sustainable renewable energy farms for the benefit of U.S. energy independence from foreign oil . . . ."

In reality, very little oil is used for generating electricity, and much of that is refinery residue.

Wind power and coal consumption

Wind energy proponents insist that wind energy development will reduce coal consumption and thereby reduce mountaintop removal and other forms of coal mining - while reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Unfortunately, this is not realistic. The recent National Research Council study on Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy Projects found that even with the most ambitious projections for onshore wind energy development in the U.S. (an estimate involving construction of 36,000 wind turbines by 2020) only 4.5% of U.S. electricity generation would be provided by wind power. Given the continuing growth in demand for electricity, wind energy development would, at best, provide only 19% of the new electricity generation needed by 2020. The remaining 81% would have to be provided by other sources. Demand for coal will increase.

The National Research Council study also found that wind power development can only offset emissions of carbon dioxide by the amount that it reduces demand for other sources of electricity that emit carbon dioxide. Thus wind power can offset carbon dioxide emissions by no more than 4.5% from the level that would otherwise occur from electricity generation. At present, electrical generating units account for 39% of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy use. If the 39% value does not change, wind power development will offset only 1.8% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy use.

The Virginia Wind website: www.VaWind.org

The National Research Council 2007 report on Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy Projects: www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11935

 

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