Hi everyone!

I was planning the content of this week’s post when coincidentally, the presidential candidates in the US were discussing wind energy in their debate, so I took a brief look at it and wow. The video below has some highlights of the energy part of the debate which you can watch.

I think we all know that President Trump tends to overexaggerate some points to get his way and sway people’s opinions but hopefully, after reading some of my previous posts, you can probably tell how misguided some of his “facts” are. He claimed that the emissions released from making turbines were higher than the emissions from natural gas, however, from my calculations the CO2 emissions for natural gas was about 440 times higher for the same amount of energy, so my guess is that he isn’t including a lot of emissions from other parts of the lifecycles in his analysis. The title of the video quotes him saying that wind turbines “kills all the birds”, but the truth is that collision rates are generally low now, so it’s really quite far from “all” and bats are probably more affected than birds. Also, remember that time he claimed that the sound of wind turbines caused cancer? That was one of the most memorable things that I remember him saying because, sure it can cause annoyance and related symptoms, but cancer? This has never been proven, so I really do wonder where he’s getting all this from.

This led me to wonder: Are there really people who think that wind energy is harmful/ not a viable option for the future of clean energy? Well, after considering all the environmental impacts of wind energy discussed previously, I still think that wind energy is a better alternative to oil and natural gas as their impacts are much more severe than that of wind. On top of that, investing in wind energy is cheaper than using fossil fuels and can also provide employment opportunities since there are so many different components in the lifecycle of a wind turbine, be it making a turbine, transporting it to its final destination or maintaining it. So wind energy can help to provide relatively cleaner energy and wouldn’t harm the economy significantly. I think that perceptions of wind energy need to change. We can’t force everyone to rely on wind energy, it’s not suitable for every location, but even so, I think more people need to realise that we can have cleaner energy now and there are options for us to switch to if we invest in it. For decisions such as sources of energy, we may not be able to directly make them ourselves, especially for us here in cities, relying on utility companies. However, if we can convince the utility companies that we want cleaner energy, we may be able to influence them to make the switch.

I hope that this post has helped you to see how some people are still misguided in their views on wind energy and that you can now see how wind energy is a way towards a more sustainable future.

See you next time!

~Rayzel