Face it. When it comes to environmental protection, the EU can be awfully strict. Drop just a single molecule of something hazardous out somewhere in nature, and expect it to be treated like the crime of the century. That’s the way it usually is with eco-bureaucrats, except of course when it comes to green energies like ugly wind turbines. There everything suddenly has no real environmental impact, and so they get a free pass.
German news weekly Der Spiegel here recently reported on how windmills are now polluting the North Sea through their corrosion protection systems. Spiegel writes:
With the continued expansion of wind parks out to sea, over the coming decades thousands of tons of toxic metal compounds will be brought into theNorth and Baltic Seas. The reason is the use of so-called sacrificial anodes. These are for preventing the corrosion of the steel bases of the wind parks.
Spiegel describes how these sacrificial anodes, which contain heavy metals, dissolve over time in the water and that no environmental impact study has ever been conducted. According to Spiegel just the interior corrosion protection of each steel tower will dump up to ten tons of aluminum over its 25-year lifetime. Yes, “each tower”!
With plans to install 6500 turbines out to sea by the year 2020, Spiegel calculates that this means 13,000 tons of aluminum rubbish could end up in the North Sea.
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Yet another example of the environmental damage of industrial wind. Currently wind has a free pass to kill thousands of birds, create unregulated audible and low frequency pollution, turn avian flight paths into killing zones, and contaminate farm land and aquifers all the while proclaiming they are saving the environment. Wind turbines are destroying our environment and are adding zero capacity value to our energy production because it is not dispatchable.
ReplyDeleteSo they are poisoning the ocean with ALUMINUM? LOL!!! This is the crazy crap the anti wind pro fossil fuel crowd come up with! Really Aluminum?
ReplyDeleteAluminum toxicity in plants is a well-known phenomenon. It kills plant roots at a very rapid rate, beginning just 60 minutes after exposure.
ReplyDeleteToxic levels of aluminum can devastate marine plant growth, and where no plants live, neither does everything that depends upon them for food, habitat, oxygen production, toxin filtering, etc.
Chemwiki:
ReplyDelete"What materials are used for sacrificial anodes?
The materials used for sacrificial anodes are either relatively pure active metals, such as zinc or magnesium, or are magnesium or aluminum alloys that have been specifically developed for use as sacrificial anodes."
Again the anti wind crowd comparing wind to nothing. Let's see a comparison to the toxins emitted by coal plants generating the same amount of electricity.
ReplyDelete@3:32 Are you claiming that the rate of decay of these anodes in the ocean will ever allow aluminum levels to approach toxic levels? If not what's your point?Very few things, if anything are not toxic at some level.
It's really hard to believe that there are people smart enough to type still supporting windmills generating electricity in salt water, then transporting low voltage 7-10 miles through salt water offering the only place for sea birds to try to land for a rest attracting them to the blade strikes still chanting support for a generator method that makes absolutely no significant contribution to our electrical needs, while polluting with zinc, noise, magnesium and aluminum.
ReplyDeleteDecimals of the percentage we need, but paying tax money to do it, raising the cost of electricity!
It just breaks my brain that these people are allowed to vote.
Ban wind turbines,especially in Maryland.
ReplyDeleteTime for some common sense. Windmills can never replace conventional power sources and add ZERO capacity because of it's intermittency. Spending BILLIONS of dollars on this technology equates to flushing our money down the toilet.
ReplyDelete