Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects (2007) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 15-27
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 15... ...
electricity generation in 2006. To the degree that wind energy reduces the need for electricity generation using other sources of energy, it can reduce the adverse environmental impacts of those sources, such as production of atmospheric and water pollution, including greenhouse gases; production of nuclear wastes; degradation of landscapes due to mining activity; and damming of rivers.
|
From page 16... ...
Year MW a ˚ 16 ˚ 1981 10 1982 70 1983 240 1984 597 1985 1,039 1986 1,222 1987 1,356 1988 1,396 1989 1,403 1990 1,525 1991 1,575 1992 1,584 1993 1,617 1994 1,656 1995 1,703 1996 1,703 1997 1,711 1998 1,853 1999 2,512 2000 2,579 2001 4,273 2002 4,685 2003 6,357 2004 6,729 2005 9,149 2006 11,603b aMegawatts bAmerican Wind Energy Association total based on project completion data reported by developers. this larger version would be rotated to the vertical for Landscape view FIGURE 1-1 Wind power: U.S.
|
From page 17... ...
. GENERATING ELECTRICITY FROM WIND ENERGY Two percent of all the energy the earth receives from the sun is converted into kinetic energy in the atmosphere, 100 times more than the energy converted into biomass by plants.
|
From page 18... ...
The first wind-powered turbine to provide electricity into an American electrical transmission grid was in October 1941 in Vermont. However, significant electricity generation from wind in the United States began only in the 1980s in California.
|
From page 19... ...
. Adverse effects of wind turbines have been documented: a recent Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (BLM 2005a)
|
From page 20... ...
Beneficial environmental effects result from the reduction of adverse impacts of other sources of energy generation, to the degree that wind energy allows the reduction of energy generation by other sources. This committee's task includes an evaluation of the importance and frequency of these effects.
|
From page 21... ...
The first three meetings included presentations from experts and provided opportunities for public comment; at its third meeting the committee toured the wind-energy installation at San Gorgonio, near Palm Springs, California; and at its fourth meeting it viewed the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center and the proposed Mount Storm projects near Davis, West Virginia, from nearby public highways (access to the Mountaineer site was not permitted)
|
From page 22... ...
To estimate those benefits requires knowledge of what other electricity-generating sources will be displaced by wind energy, so that their adverse effects can be calculated and the offsetting advantages of wind energy can be determined. As described in detail in Chapter 2, the committee has restricted its estimates of the environmental benefits of wind energy to the reduction of air emissions that results from using wind energy for electricity instead of using other sources of electricity generation.
|
From page 23... ...
For example, although wind-energy projects kill tens of thousands of birds each year in the United States, other human structures and activities, including allowing domestic cats to hunt outside, are responsible for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of bird deaths each year (see Chapter 3 for more discussion of these numbers)
|
From page 24... ...
For similar reasons, the committee also has not addressed environmental benefits related to human health. For example, wind-powered electricity generation may lessen the need for electricity generation from coal-fired power plants and thereby reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2)
|
From page 25... ...
This is the basic issue of cumulative effects assessment. The general approach to identifying and assessing cumulative effects evolved after passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
|
From page 26... ...
• Compounding effects -- effects attributable to multiple sources on a single environmental medium, such as the combined effects of turbines, cell-phone towers, transmission lines, and other structures that could kill flying animals. • Thresholds -- effects that become qualitatively different once some threshold of disturbance is reached, such as when eutrophication exhausts the oxygen in a lake, converting it to a different type of lake.
|
From page 27... ...
ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT Chapter 2 sets the context for wind energy in the United States and analyzes the committee's approach to estimating the environmental benefits of wind energy. It describes the considerations involved in understanding under what conditions and to what degree wind energy can displace electricity generation by other sources, and hence reduce the adverse environmental effects of those sources, in particular their air emissions.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.