The double standards industry
By Paul Driessen
web posted April 23, 2018
It’s a good thing environmentalists
have double standards – or they wouldn’t have any standards at all.
Empire State legislators
worry that anything above the current 0.0001% methane in Earth’s atmosphere
will cause catastrophic climate change, and that pipelines will disturb
wildlife habitats. So they oppose fracking for natural gas in New York and
pipelines that would import the clean fuel from Pennsylvania.
But then they bribe or force
rural and vacation
area communities to accept dozens of towering wind turbines that impact
thousands of acres, destroy scenic views, kill thousands of birds and bats
annually, and affect the sleep
and health of local residents – to generate pricey intermittent electricity
that is sent on high voltage transmission lines to Albany, Manhattan and other
distant cities.
Meanwhile, developers are
building a 600-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from West Virginia to North
Carolina, to power generating plants that provide low-cost electricity almost
24/7/365. A portion of the 100-foot-wide pipeline right-of-way must go through
forested areas, necessitating tree removal.
To protect migratory birds
and endangered bats, state and federal officials generally require that tree
cutting be prohibited between mid-March and mid-October. Because the Atlantic
Coast Pipeline is behind schedule, the companies sought
approval to continue felling trees until May 15, to avoid further delays
that could increase costs by $150-350 million. The request was denied.
Not surprisingly, the
pipeline, logging and request to cut during migratory and mating season
continue to put the developers, regulators and environmentalists at
loggerheads. A 16-mile long segment through Virginia’s George Washington National
Forest has garnered particular attention.
Although the short segment
would affect just 200 of the GWNF’s 1.1 million acres, the Virginia Wilderness
Committee claimed any tree cutting in the area would create an “industrial
zone” and “severely degrade some of the best remaining natural landscapes” in
the Eastern USA. The Southern Environmental Law Center called the entire
project “risky” and “unnecessary.” They and allied groups prefer to “keep
fossil fuels in the ground” and force a rapid transition to solar and wind
energy.
One has to wonder how they
would react to the far greater environmental impacts their “green” energy
future would bring. Will they be true to their convictions, or continue
applying double standards?
For example, using sun power
to replace just the electricity from Virginia’s nearly 24/7/365 Lake Anna
Nuclear Generating Station would require nearly 20,000 acres of solar panels
(twice the size of Washington, DC) that would provide power just 20-30% of the
time. The rest of the time, the commonwealth would need fossil fuel or battery
backup power – or homes, businesses, hospitals and schools would have to be
happy with electricity when it’s available, instead of when they need it.
That’s 100 times more land
than needed for the pipeline, which will be underground and mostly invisible,
whereas the highly visible solar panels would blanket former crop and habitat
land for decades.
Natural gas and coal generate
about 55 million megawatt-hours of Virginia’s annual electricity. Replacing that
with wind power would require thousands of gigantic turbines, sprawling across
a half-million acres of forest, farm and other lands. Expensive backup battery
arrays and transmission lines from wind farms to
distant urban areas would require thousands of additional acres.
(This rough
calculation recognizes that many turbines would have to be located in poor wind
areas and would thus generate electricity only 15-20% of the time. It also
assumes that two-thirds of windy day
generation would charge batteries for seven
straight windless days, and that each turbine
requires 15 acres for blade sweep, operational airspace and access roads.)
The turbines, transmission
lines and batteries would require millions
of tons of concrete, steel, copper, neodymium, lithium,
cobalt, petroleum-based composites and other
raw materials; removing billions of tons of earth and rock to mine the ores;
and burning prodigious amounts of fossil fuels in enormous smelters and
factories to turn ores into finished components.
Most of that work will take
place in Africa, China and other distant locations – out of sight, and out of
mind for most Virginians, Americans and environmentalists. But as we are often
admonished, we should act locally, think globally, and consider the horrendous
environmental and health
and safety conditions under which all these activities take place in those
faraway lands.
Many turbines will be located
on mountain ridges, where the winds blow best and most often. Ridge tops will
be deforested, scenic vistas will be ruined, and turbines will slice and dice
migratory birds, raptors and bats by the tens of thousands every year. Those
that aren’t yet threatened or endangered soon will be.
The wind industry and many
regulators and environmentalists consider those death tolls “incidental
takings,” “acceptable” losses of “expendable” wildlife, essential for achieving
the “climate-protecting” elimination of fossil fuels. The deaths are certainly
not deliberate – so the December 2018 Interior
Department decision to end the possibility of criminal prosecutions for
them, under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, makes sense.
However, when regulators
allow industrial wind facilities in and near migratory routes, nesting areas
and other places – where large numbers of eagles, hawks, falcons, migratory
birds and bats congregate – the number of deaths soars beyond “incidental” or
“acceptable.” And as the number of US onshore wind turbines climbs from 40,000
a few years ago, to 52,000 today, to potentially millions under “keep oil, gas
and coal in the ground” demands, the threat of decimation or extinction across
wide areas skyrockets.
Some say we should install
future turbines offshore, in our coastal areas. Truly monstrous 3.5-megawatt
turbines would certainly reduce the total number needed to replace substantial
quantities of fossil fuel electricity. However, they would destroy scenic ocean
vistas, decimate sea and shore bird populations (with carcasses conveniently
sinking from sight), impair porpoise and whale sonar, interfere with radar and
air traffic control, and create significant hazards for submarines and surface
ships.
Even worse, as wildlife
biologist Jim
Wiegand and other experts have noted, the wind industry has gone to great
lengths to hide the actual death tolls. For example, they look only right under
towers and blades (when carcasses and maimed birds can be catapulted hundreds
of yards by blades that move at nearly 200 mph at their tips), canvass areas
only once every few weeks (ensuring that scavengers eat the evidence), and make
wind farms off limits to independent investigators.
The bird and bat killings may
not be criminal, but the fraud and cover-ups certainly are.
The attitudes, regulations
and penalties associated with wind turbines also stand in stark contrast to the
inflexible, heavy-handed approach that environmentalists, regulators and courts
typically apply to permit applications for drilling, pipelines, grazing and
other activities where sage
grouse and lesser prairie chickens are involved – or requests to cut trees
until May 15, to finish a Virginia pipeline.
The Fish & Wildlife
Service, Center for Biological Diversity and Audubon Society go apoplectic in
those circumstances. (Audubon was outraged that Interior decriminalized
accidental deaths of birds in oilfield waste pits.) But their
silence over the growing bird and bat slaughter by wind turbines has been
deafening.
These attitudes and policies
scream “double standards!” Indeed, consistent bird and bat protection policies
would fairly and logically mean banning turbines in and near habitats, refuges
and flyways – or shutting them down during mating, nesting and migratory
seasons.
It’s time to rethink all
these policies. Abundant, reliable, affordable energy makes our jobs, health,
living standards and civilization possible. The way we’re going,
environmentalists, regulators and judges will block oil, gas and coal today …
nuclear and hydroelectric tomorrow … and wind and solar facilities the
following week – sending us backward a century or more. It’s time to say,
Enough! 
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.