Talk:Environmental impact of wind power

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Wiki Education assignment: Cold War Science

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2022 and 6 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ablerini (article contribs).

Expanding Offshore Section

I plan to expand offshore section adding in a paragraph about the physical and meterological impact windfarms can have, as well as expand the current information of impact on animals. All information is coming from peer-reviewed published literature. EcoPolicyEnthusiast (talk) 18:46, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: ENGW3303 Adv. Writing for the Environmental Professions

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2025 and 15 April 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): EcoPolicyEnthusiast (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by EcoPolicyEnthusiast (talk) 18:49, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder whether the Environmental impact of wind power#Findings when connected to the grid section should be deleted as firstly it has a strange title (almost all wind power is grid connected nowadays) and secondly the citations are mostly 10 years old and wind power has changed in the past ten years. Thirdly the graphic at the top of the article is better than the one in the section. What do you think? Chidgk1 (talk) 07:02, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I added in the reasoning behind the physical impact of offshore turbines, and reorganized the section a bit. EcoPolicyEnthusiast (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the deleted section to below in case you or anyone else wishes to salvage anything Chidgk1 (talk) 09:13, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted section

Findings when connected to the grid

A typical study of a wind farm's Life cycle assessment, when not connected to the electric grid, usually results in similar findings as the following 2006 analysis of 3 installations in the US Midwest, where the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions of wind power ranged from 14 to 33 tonnes (15 to 36 short tons) per GWh (14–33 gCO₂/kWh) of energy produced, with most of the CO₂ emission intensity coming from producing steel, concrete, and plastic/fiberglass composites for the turbine structure and foundation.^[1]^[2] By combining similar data from numerous individual studies in a meta-analysis, the median global warming potential for wind power was found to be 11–12 g CO₂/kWh and unlikely to change significantly.^[3]^[4]^[5]

This higher dependence on back-up/Load following power plants to ensure a steady power grid output has the knock-on-effect of more frequent inefficient (in CO₂e g/kWh) throttling up and down of these other power sources in the grid to facilitate the intermittent power source's variable output. When one includes the total effect of intermittent sources on other power sources in the grid system, that is, including these inefficient start up emissions of backup power sources to cater for wind energy, into wind energy's total system-wide life cycle, this results in a higher real-world wind energy emission intensity. Higher than the direct g/kWh value that is determined from looking at the power source in isolation and thus ignores all down-stream detrimental/inefficiency effects it has on the grid. This higher dependence on back-up/Load following power plants to ensure a steady power grid output forces fossil power plants to operate in less efficient states.^[4]^{[better source needed]}

In comparison to other low carbon power sources wind turbines, when assessed in isolation, have a median life cycle emission value of between 11 and 12 (gCO₂eq/kWh).^[3]^[6] While an increase in emissions due to the practical issues of load balancing is an issue, Pehnt et al. still conclude that these 20 and 80 g CO₂-eq/kWh added penalties still result in wind being roughly ten times less polluting than fossil gas and coal which emit ~400 and 900 g CO₂-eq/kWh respectively.^[7] As these losses occur due to the cycling of fossil power plants, they may at some point become smaller when more than 20–30% of wind energy is added to the power grid, as fossil power plants are replaced, however this has yet to occur in practice.^[8]^{[better source needed]} Chidgk1 (talk) 09:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Removing/Updating Current Status Section

The current status section is out of date, so if no objections, I am going to remove most of it and provide more up to date information EcoPolicyEnthusiast (talk) 18:23, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

^ White, S. W. (2007). "Net Energy Payback and CO₂ Emissions from Three Midwestern Wind Farms: An Update". Natural Resources Research. 15 (4): 271–281. Bibcode:2007NRR....15..271W. doi:10.1007/s11053-007-9024-y.
^ Smil, Vaclov (2016-02-29). "To Get Wind Power You Need Oil – Each wind turbine embodies a whole lot of petrochemicals and fossil-fuel energy". IEEE Spectrum.
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference IPCC 2014 Annex III was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Dolan, Stacey L.; Heath, Garvin A. (2012). "Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Utility-Scale Wind Power". Journal of Industrial Ecology. 16: S136 – S154. doi:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00464.x. SSRN 2051326.
^ "IPCC Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change, Annex II Metrics and Methodology. pp. 37–40, 41" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-29.
^ "IPCC Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change, Annex II Metrics and Methodology. pp. 37–40, 41" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-08.
^ Pehnt, Martin; Oeser, Michael; Swider, Derk J. (2008). "Consequential environmental system analysis of expected offshore wind electricity production in Germany". Energy. 33 (5): 747–759. Bibcode:2008Ene....33..747P. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.577.9201. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2008.01.007.
^ Breyer, Christian; Koskinen, Otto; Blechinger, Philipp (2015). "Profitable climate change mitigation: The case of greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits enabled by solar photovoltaic systems". Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 49: 610–628. Bibcode:2015RSERv..49..610B. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2015.04.061.

[White-1] White, S. W. (2007). "Net Energy Payback and CO₂ Emissions from Three Midwestern Wind Farms: An Update". Natural Resources Research. 15 (4): 271–281. Bibcode:2007NRR....15..271W. doi:10.1007/s11053-007-9024-y.

[2] Smil, Vaclov (2016-02-29). "To Get Wind Power You Need Oil – Each wind turbine embodies a whole lot of petrochemicals and fossil-fuel energy". IEEE Spectrum.

[IPCC_2014_Annex_III-3] Cite error: The named reference IPCC 2014 Annex III was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Dolan-4] Dolan, Stacey L.; Heath, Garvin A. (2012). "Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Utility-Scale Wind Power". Journal of Industrial Ecology. 16: S136 – S154. doi:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00464.x. SSRN 2051326.

[5] "IPCC Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change, Annex II Metrics and Methodology. pp. 37–40, 41" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-29.

[6] "IPCC Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change, Annex II Metrics and Methodology. pp. 37–40, 41" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-08.

[PandC-7] Pehnt, Martin; Oeser, Michael; Swider, Derk J. (2008). "Consequential environmental system analysis of expected offshore wind electricity production in Germany". Energy. 33 (5): 747–759. Bibcode:2008Ene....33..747P. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.577.9201. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2008.01.007.

[8] Breyer, Christian; Koskinen, Otto; Blechinger, Philipp (2015). "Profitable climate change mitigation: The case of greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits enabled by solar photovoltaic systems". Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 49: 610–628. Bibcode:2015RSERv..49..610B. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2015.04.061.

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