Steamroller of Wind Farm Development Puts Democracy on Pause
People are left with health risks, environmental waste and expensive energy.
In 2010, the Netherlands adopted the Crisis and Recovery Act in order to boost the economy after the 2008 economic crisis and to speed up the processing of various projects. The law included 58 projects, such as bridges and harbours, as well as wind farms, for which the government committed to investing 2.4 billion over the next 20 years.
Politicians were convinced that the importance of green energy in achieving CO2 reductions is so significant that the installation of wind turbines and solar parks cannot be delayed by lengthy legal procedures. The Crisis and Recovery Act is hence a law by which the voice of the public can largely be set aside and essential infrastructure works carried out quickly. The law allows for a form of citizen participation, but the lodging of appeals has yielded no consequence thus far, as objections to the siting of wind farms and solar parks have exclusively been deemed unjustified.
By definition, the implementation of the Crisis and Recovery Act would presume a crisis at the national level, a crisis of high national importance. In addition, the situation should present a necessity to act swiftly, since the law allows to temporarily suspend much of the usual democratic processes and the according rules. Now, however, under the guise of economic recovery, the crisis law has been put to use in order to introduce the wind industry and to bring it, amongst other locations, to the rare protected areas of nature. The notion of ‘a crisis’ has thus been abused to carry out actions that would have normally led to far greater political opposition.
Producing “green energy” outweighs citizens’ interests and rights
In 2013, the formerly temporary Crisis and Recovery Act was made permanent, and, to the delight of almost all environmental activists at the time, wind turbine manufacturers were given a free hand. But not so much to the delight of residents around the proposed wind farms. Lawyer and political scientist Sanne Akerboom explains a landmark case in this, the Drenthe wind farm. “It is only when the government is almost ready with the decision that the people living there hear about it for the first time. Residents then think they have a say in how the wind farm is built, or even whether it is built at all. But by that time the government has already thought of everything: noise standards, distance standards, nature conservation.”
The opposition to the wind farms amongst the residents of Drenthe and Groningen counties grew ever stronger, their protests escalating between 2018 and 2019. There were fires, Molotov cocktails were thrown about and slates of asbestos were cast on the ground. Farmers on whose land the wind turbines were being installed would suddenly find cans of spikes on their land, intended to damage vehicles. Threatening letters were sent to the developers and representatives of the municipal office. In 2019, two men, Jan H. and Jan Nieboer, were arrested for allegedly arranging these protests. Both were convicted in 2021, with Jan H. sentenced to up to one year in prison, with 6 months suspended. Jan Nieboer appealed his conviction. In 2024, he was sentenced to 6 months of imprisonment by the Court of Appeal. The verdict has not yet entered into force, as Nieboer appealed it once more.
Akerboom states the years-long protests against wind turbine construction were a result of a top-down approach to governance that failed to consider the interests of the population: “The government never asks for the opinion of the local people any more and that feels very frustrating for the people, they have a hard time understanding it.”
Government changes tactics: an illusion of inclusion
After widespread protests, in the course of which a couple of developers abandoned their plan for wind farms, the government decided to change tactics and involved locals in the discussions, for “by exchanging arguments, you are showing people what you have done for their concerns. Then it will be easier for them to accept defeat."
Developers now spoke of their plans with a wider community of people and were able to attract some with the prospect of becoming the co-owners of wind farms and thus making an earning out of the development. They also began offering people financial compensation.
However, Akerboom says that what is being done is not enough, for an analysis by the Dutch Environmental Planning Agency shows that citizens were involved in only a third of the regional energy strategy plans. Nor were the representatives of various interest groups that have to deal with the consequences of the policy, such as doctors and landscape conservationists, involved in the discussions. A report from 2021 shows that those with major economic interests in the projects were far more likely to be represented in the discussions than any of the local communities.
But the crisis seems to have come to an end, as on 01.01.2024 the former Crisis and Recovery Act was replaced by a new legislation called the Environmental Planning Act, under which, however, the move towards renewable energy will continue.
Wind turbines are “harmless” or what science says
As we thus witnessed, the Dutch state didn’t hesitate to push the development of wind farms even by suppressing the rules of democracy and riding roughshod over local residents. This has also been accompanied by a denial of any negative impact of the wind turbines – on nature at large as well as human health.
Complaints on wind turbine induced health problems, thus far for turbines no higher than 75–100 metres, have been on an upward trend in the Netherlands for a while: there were around 1,500 complaints in 2009, yet by 2019, the same number had risen to 28,000. There are about 35 related court cases going on at present, but despite that, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) says the evidence is insufficient to claim that wind turbines can cause health problems. People’s complaints are described as “subjective resentment” and also referred to as the “nocebo” effect – in other words, people’s health problems are said to be caused by their own negative expectations and beliefs.
It is also claimed that residential buildings farther than 400 metres from a wind turbine are already at a sufficiently safe distance. The Netherlands is also the only country where the measured noise of the wind turbines is averaged over the span of a year, i.e. the noise marker is calculated by combining periods when the turbines are in operation and when they stand still. In addition, the noise standard of 47dB allowed in the Netherlands is the highest in Europe, the lowest being 35dB in Germany, France, and Sweden.
However, it is known that besides industrial noise, wind turbines generate sounds that can be classified as amplitude modulation, infrasound or low-frequency sound, and in some cases also a tonal sound. In conclusion, it can be said that the different sounds produced by wind turbines are more disturbing to people than traffic and air traffic noise. In order to identify possible health problems related to the sounds generated by wind turbines, a number of doctors have formed an association called Windwiki and share related scientific research on their website.
Studies confirm adverse effects on humans and animals
Jan de Laat, a specialist at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), has analysed around 300 German, French, and American studies on the effects of infrasound, which all show that the noise made by wind turbines can cause serious health problems for people in the full radius of three kilometres. No studies have yet been produced on large wind turbines.
However, a German doctor Dr Ursula Bellut-Stacch has published a study stating that infrasound is a major problem for all organisms and noted that since the sounds produced by higher turbines have lower frequency than others, they present a greater danger in this.
Various studies show that adverse effects on human health are certainly there and that more in-depth studies are due. But neither developers nor policy makers are interested in performing them.
Quality long-term studies about the impact of wind turbines on fauna and flora are also missing. A study produced at Wageningen University (WU) investigated their impact on birds, bats, marine animals, and fish, but data were only collected at local levels and hence the cumulative effect was not yet visible. The study was later extended and it found that the cumulative effect is much higher than initially expected and could lead to a decline of up to 77% in some populations over longer periods of time, and hence WU made a recommendation not to establish wind farms around the habitats of rare species.
Various studies composed by developers do not correspond to reality as they have been seen to employ incomplete data or to manipulate it.
Toxic substances end up in nature
Besides that, the Netherlands lacks effective mechanisms to monitor the amount of harmful chemicals (BPA, SF6, synthetic oil) produced by wind farms as they get emitted into the environment. According to RIVM, a small 2 MW wind farm produces a trail of 3.1 grams to 14 kilograms of microplastics (BPA) per year. In comparison, however, an independent organisation called Turbine Group claims that each wind turbine with a rotor diameter of 120 metres emits 62 kilograms of microplastics per year. It is to be noted that the new wind turbines are planned to have rotor diameters of 220 metres and will have blades coated with materials the composition of which the developers have refused to disclose, citing commercial law, and that cannot thus be reviewed in consideration of issuing new permits for the construction of wind farms. The RIVM issued a survey in 2022 which stated the coatings of new wind turbines make use of 19 harmful materials, 3 of them regarded as being “of very high concern”.
Sulfur hexafluoride, or SF6, has been used for electrical substations since the 1960s, most of all at medium and high voltage substations. SF6 is also often used for the inside of a wind turbine since its usage reduces the risk of short circuits. A single SF6 molecule has 23,000 times the greenhouse effect of a CO₂ molecule and remains active for thousands of years.
In 2019, the BBC dubbed the SF6 “a dirty little secret” of the renewables industry, after two British universities had published alarming views on its use and increasing leaks in the world. Efforts were made to regulate SF6’s use in the Netherlands but to no avail. “In the end, the lobbying made by the electricity industry was too strong and we had to yield to them,” said Green MP Bas Eickhout, who had led the unsuccessful attempt to curtail the usage. “The electricity industry declared categorically that if one wants energy transition, or to base one’s energy usage increasingly on electricity, there needs to be an increase of electrical equipment. And that means requiring more SF6.”
In conclusion, there is a lack of transparent data in regard to the chemicals used in the manufacture of wind turbines, the quantities released into the environment thereby, and the potential adverse effects.
The wind turbines are “effective”, i.e. trust the propaganda
Another important myth, which is being propagated by the authorities, is that the production of electricity by wind is highly efficient and will bring down the cost. The same has been consistently stated by the Dutch authorities, although the truth is the exact opposite.
Professor Guus Berkhout: “Moving air contains very little energy and for wind turbines to extract that little bit of energy that is there requires a lot of endeavour. If the wind force is below 3 (3.4-5.4 m/s – ed.), the energy output is zero and at the wind force of 7 (13.9-17.1 m/s – ed.), the turbine is already close to the maximum. Therefore, the average energy production of onshore wind farms is less than 30% of what they should nominally be able to deliver. Why do we not hear about this? But a part which is even worse is that the erratic weather and highly non-linear characteristics of wind turbines mean that the variations around this average are too large to effectively manage. Production varies constantly from very low (when the wind force is below 3) to very high (wind force above 7). And since we don’t have the technology to store electricity at a large scale, the electricity grid needs to be significantly expanded so that it can somehow cope with large wind peaks. In addition to that, gas-fired power plants will need to continue to operate in the background to offer quick help during periods of low wind speed. All of this makes wind energy expensive. Did you know that wind energy provides a paltry 1.83% of our total energy needs (CBS, 2019)? Did you also know that during periods of high wind, peak supply is so high that the government (read: citizens) has to pay to get rid of its “waste stream” (i.e. pay to have the wind turbines taken off the grid – ed.)? And over periods of low wind, gas needs to be employed.”
It is difficult to get an exact figure for the number of wind turbines that are there in the Netherlands, as developers and the statistics office prefer to talk in terms of capacities, i.e. Mega and Terawatt numbers, rather than the number of windmills. According to various sources though it feels reliable to say that there are about 3,000 wind turbines onshore (including those at inland waterways) and about 500 at the sea right now.
The official statistics claim that almost half of the country’s electricity comes from renewables, but no mention is made of the fact that electricity accounts only for about 20% of all energy consumption. In 2022, renewables provided only 17% of the total energy requirement. Moreover, the largest share of renewable energy was produced from biomass, i.e. wood, constituting 5.85% of the energy consumption, followed by solar energy (4.04%), onshore wind farms (3.15%), and off-shore wind farms (2.16%).
In actuality, wind energy is inefficient because:
A dual energy system is required, and wind energy will remain dependent on fossil energy.
An enormous and expensive new infrastructure needs to be established.
Hydrogen is ineffective and expensive. Samuel Furfari, a researcher at the University of Brussels, discusses it in his book The Hydrogen Illusion, saying that hydrogen has an efficiency of less than 30%. Furari claims the process is inefficient to the degree that it can have no industrial application beyond continuous subsidies.
Batteries are inefficient and expensive. In his book The Green Illusion, engineer Maarten van Andel calculates that it would take 1,000 kilograms of batteries to store the amount of energy that is generally consumed by a Dutch household in a week, and 2 million kilograms of batteries to store the energy used by the country in a minute.
Maintenance costs for wind farms account for a quarter of their total expense. The rotors of wind turbines that have a height of 250 to 270 metres wear out faster than was expected and require frequent maintenance and offshore wind turbines wear out even faster due to more severe weather conditions.
The cost of demolishing amortized wind turbines is high (around €500,000 per tonne) and their parts have no prospect of being reused. In Europe, 4 million tonnes of composite waste already ends up in landfills each year.
“Noordzee wordt Moordzee” – North Sea becomes the Murder Sea
24.04.2024 – the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Luxembourg have agreed to deploy around 30,000 wind turbines in the North Sea. The Dutch contribution alone will amount to 2,100 wind turbines by 2030. In the name of ‘saving’ the climate, the North Sea will be turned into an industrial zone with tens of thousands of wind turbines, millions of solar panels, hydrogen production complexes, thick electricity cables, and hydrogen pipelines.
Such large-scale construction activities are changing the seabed and the changes should be mapped, but in practice they never are. It is also to be considered that the middle of the North Sea has a more shallow portion and the installment of wind turbines at that location is likely to alter the whole ecosystem, yet in which way is unknown. The likely threats are that herring will disappear from the region, which could in turn lead to the demise of certain animal species. What the consequences of this gigantic undertaking really are for the sea and the marine life is anybody's guess, as studies on this are still incomplete, aforementioned Wageningen University as one of the institutions engaged in them. So it appears we are ready to first destroy and only then investigate, which means the results of the investigation will actually no longer matter, for by that time nothing can any longer be done against the harm – after all, billions have already been invested.
Riks Noorman is a registered chartered surveyor specialising in appraising forklifts, cranes, harbour cranes, and his 35 years-long experience of appraisals is being used for everything from mini excavators to Airbus 380s. Noorman appraises wind turbines as well. With the prevailing position of social debate being that these constitute ‘green’ energy, he became interested in delving deeper into the matter. It should be noted that Noorman is neither an opponent of the green revolution nor a sceptic, but is in favour of moving towards a more frugal use of energy. However, he is concerned about the future generations of this so-called green energy will be bequeathed. For most people, the notion of green energy means environmentally friendly energy production – or in other words, that which is good for the climate is presumed to be good for the environment as well. However, Noorman is far from being convinced of this. He treats wind turbines as industrial devices that produce energy and wind farms as industrial sites that have nothing to do with nature.
Because of his job, Noorman spends a lot of time at sea appraising cranes, ships, and other large targets. He talks to fishermen who are finding more and more dead birds in their nets and sees from his navigation system how the high-voltage cables connecting the wind turbines with onshore stations are disturbing not only airplanes and ships but fish as well. High-voltage cables transport electricity to transformer yards, which then distribute it out and by that, affect the surrounding electromagnetic field. Yet fish navigate their way via the magnetic field and now get lost in their path. Whales are most affected by sounds since whales communicate specifically through sound. The sound produced by wind turbines (and not just during their construction) is very strong. According to Noorman, because of the new situation, submarines can no longer be detected either.
Noorman has the qualification to assess the construction of equipment and the impact of a particular design, i.e. to assess how long a particular device or piece of equipment will be effective. The technology used to construct wind turbines has evolved over the decades, and new materials such as kevlar and epoxy resin have been introduced. The largest offshore wind turbines rotate at speeds of 600-900 km/h, measured from the tip of the blades, leading to a rapid wear of the rotors and release of PFAS. PFAS are man-made substances that are toxic and do not degrade in the environment, and their full effect on the environment and humans is yet unknown. According to Mr Noorman, fishermen have found up to 3x6 cm fragments of turbines in the fish. In addition, the turbines drop an anti-rusting agent and antifreeze into the sea. At the same time, the government has brought down the number of fishermen operating in the North Sea from 480 to 220, since fishing vessels are claimed to be a source of pollution.
Due to wear and tear, the life span of a wind turbine is notably shorter than the developers claim. It depends also on their location – Lake Ijsselmeer is calmer, for example than the North Sea, which is more prone to storms. At first, the officials talked of a 20-year life span, but it now turns out that the rotors need to be replaced every 3 years. By way of comparison, the propeller of an airplane has to be replaced after every 2,000 hours of work. There are 7,700 hours a year. If the wind turbines rotate, for example, for about 4,000 hours a year, that makes a total of 12,000 hours over three years.
Noorman is also a captain and a pilot, and from his own experience, he confirms that the weather changes around the wind turbines, i.e. the turbines affect not only the currents but also the climate. The wind turbines change the shape of the clouds – they become more wavy when the blades bite into them. When the clouds are low, wind turbines will function like ventilators that suck the air in. In the summer, they will blow the warmer air to the coast. The Royal Netherlands Institute of Meteorology (KNMI) recognises that wind turbines do impact local weather, increasing the amount of precipitation, and KNMI says they are still studying these effects. The impact of wind farms on the weather conditions is confirmed by dozens of scientific and observational studies, hence by claiming to solve the so-called climate problem, we are actually causing the temperature to rise and precipitation to increase.
Noorman has also personally seen an electric windmill cutting into a flock of geese since turbines create a vacuum behind them and when the birds fly into it, they get drawn unto the blades.
If one were to account for the total energy usage from the moment the excavators start digging (down to 38 m) to the moment the turbines are being dismantled, the wind turbines have a yield of 0, Noorman says. So far, the cost of constructing a wind farm is calculated only in money, but how much energy is actually consumed to construct, repair, and later demolish them, as well as to set up the systems of interconnection, goes unaccounted for. This energy chain has to be subsidised to the tune of billions since maintaining wind turbines is an extremely energy intensive task. In addition to the materials needed for the maintenance, the energy consumed by the helicopters and ships used to carry out that maintenance should be considered as well. There is also the question of how to remove expired wind turbines since this is difficult and costly and, according to Mr Noorman, it is more likely that they will remain standing in the sea without further use.
Over the past decades, it has become clear that the only green part of green energy is the ‘green’ of the dollar in the pockets of the developers, and natural as well as human habitats are being destroyed in the name of 'saving the climate'. This is even before mentioning the betrayal of people’s expectations and misrepresentation of profitability, as exemplified by the failed Dutch solar policy. Solar energy will no longer be worth a penny in 2027, and those owning the panels are going to suffer the consequences. Many households with solar panels will see their energy bills soon rise by €1,000 a year.
The article makes extensive use of the material published by the climate realism organisation Clintel: https://clintel.nl/rapport-het-windmolendrama/
 |
|