Disadvantages of wind power
1) Wind Reliability
-Wind doesn’t generally blow reliably, and turbines usually function at
about 30% capacity or so.
-In the event that the weather is not going to support you
-Serious storms or high winds may cause harm to your wind turbine,
particularly when they are struck by lightning.
2) Threat to wildlife
-The edges of wind turbines can actually be unsafe for wildlife, especially
birds and other flying creatures that may be in the area.
-This is thought to have contributed to a noticeable decline in the number of
certain species.
-It's estimated that as many as half a million birds are killed in wind turbine
collisions each year, and with wind energy capacity due to increase
significantly in the coming years, this figure could reach almost one and a
half million a year.
3) Setup cost
-The manufacturing and installation of wind turbines require heavy upfront
investments both in commercial and residential applications.
-Wind systems can involve the transportation of large and heavy
equipment, causing a large temporarily disturbed area near the turbines.
-Wind turbines and other supplies needed to make wind energy could be
extremely costly in advance.
4) Noise Pollution
-Wind turbines make a sound that can be between 50 and 60 decibels, and
if you have to put it next to your home.
-Some wind turbines tend to generate a lot of noise which can be
unpleasant
5) Technology Immaturity
New technology is needed to lower costs,
Increase reliability and
Energy production,
Solve regional deployment issues,
Expand the resource area,
Develop infrastructure and
Manufacturing facilities, and
Mitigate known environmental impacts.
Therefore, one may argue that implementation of wind energy must be delayed until
technological advancements are made.
6) Certain locations
-Wind energy can only be harnessed at certain locations where
the speed of the wind is high.
-They are mostly set up in remote areas, transmission lines have
to be built to bring the power to the residential homes in the
city, which requires extra investment to set up the infrastructure.
7) Effect on Environment
-For the turbines,
Excavating for the foundations,
Bringing all the components to the site,
A lot of concrete is typically needed,
Onshore farms will often need new service roads to be put in, and
The list goes on. Plus, a lot of these jobs are done using diesel-powered
machines.
-To give an example, the world's largest offshore wind farm is now under
construction off the coast of the UK, which promises to produce enough
electricity to power around 4.5 million homes, or approximately five
percent of the country's total electricity demand, using the world's most
powerful turbines. This all sounds great, but it also means
Miles of cabling,
Converter stations,
Vegetation clearance,
Land drainage,
Roads,
Grid connections etc.
And with onshore farms, despite that relatively small footprint that we talked
about earlier,
There's still little else that you can do with the land between the turbines
other than farming and grazing.
-It obliges a ton of open area to set up wind turbines
and chopping down trees kind of eliminates the whole green
thing that you’re trying to do with them. Places that may be
good for it may be difficult to get to and use.
-Erosion is another potential environmental problem that can
stem from construction projects.
8) Decommissioning
-The blades, which are usually made from composite materials such as
fiberglass or carbon fiber, depending on their age. These materials are
strong enough to withstand the extreme weather conditions that turbines
are often subjected to, and light enough so the turbines can actually turn,
but when they need to be decommissioned there's little else you can do
but bury them in landfill sites or burn them through a process called
pyrolysis.
-The landfill option is obviously not very eco-friendly, especially when the
blades can be longer than the wing of a Boeing 747 and weigh up to eight
tons each. This means they often have to be transported one at a time,
and that's a lot of truck journeys, plus there's all the heavy machinery
needed to cut up the blades before they're buried.
-With pyrolysis, the blades are also chopped up, but then they're placed
into high-temperature ovens to break down the composite fibers. This
creates a material that can be used to make things such as paints and
glues. But the process requires a lot of energy, so even though it can be
thought of as a form of recycling, it's still not all that green.
-All of this is a big issue because the turbines that were installed in the wind
power boom period of the 1990s and 2000s are now coming to the end of
their lifecycles or are already there. It is likely only going to get worse in the
future too, as installations of wind turbines worldwide has increased by
more than five times over the past decade, so unless we come up with
new ways of getting rid of them, we're going to have an even bigger landfill
problem further down the line.
