The wind turbines visible from Donald Trump’s Turnberry and Menie golf courses have long enraged the president. At a press conference at his Ayrshire resort announcing a trade deal with the EU this weekend, Trump launched into an unprompted tirade against windfarms, instructing European countries to get rid of theirs. He was visiting Turnberry for the first time since the nearby onshore Kirk Hill windfarm began producing energy from eight turbines.
But were his comments about wind power correct?
It’s the ‘most expensive form of energy’
Trump claimed: “It is the worst form of energy, the most expensive form of energy, but windmills should not be allowed.”
This is certainly not true for onshore wind, which is cheap to build and generates electricity very inexpensively. Offshore windfarms cost more to build but when it is windy produces electricity extremely cheaply. There are costs associated with wind; the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has recently faced criticism for setting the maximum price at his upcoming renewable energy auction at £113 a megawatt-hour for offshore wind, for record-length contracts of 20 years.
By comparison, the wholesale gas price is £78/MWh at present. However, during the price spike of 2022, wholesale gas went above £170/MWh. Because Britain’s electricity grid has not been sufficiently updated, windfarms are also often paid millions to switch off when it is very windy to avoid overloading the network.
However, even with these added costs, offshore wind is less expensive than nuclear to build, has a stable price compared with gas, which is sold on international markets, and is cheaper to generate than fossil fuels.
Turbines drive whales ‘loco’
Trump has often claimed that offshore wind kills whales and drives them crazy.
It is tricky to make definitive claims about whether or not whales are driven “loco” by offshore wind, as many aspects of whale behaviour are not well understood by scientists. However, it does not appear there is direct evidence that offshore windfarms frequently cause whale deaths. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said: “There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities.”
Whales could be disturbed during the initial stages of offshore-wind construction. High-resolution geophysical surveys to map the seafloor are carried out that could disturb marine mammals. However, these are much smaller in scale than those conducted for oil and gas exploration.
Most of the known direct causes of whale deaths are related to the fishing industry, with the mammal caught in or ingesting fishing equipment. The warming and acidification of oceans caused by global heating from burning fossil fuels is also a threat to whales’ survival.
They kill birds
Trump said windfarms “kill the birds”, and this is true, to an extent. Birds can collide with the turbines, and offshore windfarms are sometimes constructed in important feeding sites for seabirds such as puffins as they are put in shallow waters where sand eels are found.
However, the proportion of birds killed by turbines is tiny compared with the amount killed, for example, by domestic cats and from flying into power lines. Destroying bird habitat and poisoning their food with pesticides has also had a greater impact on populations than the prevalence of wind turbines.
Some wind companies are taking action to become less lethal to birds; a project in Norway painted its turbines black, which resulted in 70% fewer bird deaths.
Turbines only last eight years before having to be binned
Trump claimed: “When they start to rust and rot in eight years you can’t really turn them off, you can’t burn them. They won’t let you bury the propellers, the props, because there’s a certain type of fibre that doesn’t go well with the land.”
This is not true. Wind turbines have a typical lifespan of 20-25 years, and the industry is getting better at recycling old parts; according to the National Grid, 96% of a wind turbine is made from recyclable materials. Their outer shell, shafts, gearing and electrical components are typically made from steel, copper, aluminium, other precious metals and recyclable plastics. The blades are made from fibreglass, which is not biodegradable and is indeed typically sent to landfill. However, scientists have found a way to repurpose them into cement, and the blades have been used to create pedestrian footbridges in Ireland and noise barriers for highways in the US.
They’re made in China
He’s right on this one; China accounts for about 60% of global wind turbine manufacturing. However, the country dominates the rest of the globe on most manufacturing, so this isn’t a surprise.
The UK wind manufacturing sector is growing as part of the green economy, providing jobs in post-industrial areas in particular.
They’re ‘killing us’
Trump claimed wind turbines were killing people. There have been a handful of human deaths linked to turbines, but these are construction accidents. Deaths are not uncommon in many big industries, including oil and gas , but wind turbines do not pose a fatal threat to the general public.
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