Wind farms: Are the benefits blown away by the costs?

Wind Power

Wind energy is the fastest developing renewable energy source in the US.

As of the end of this year's second quarter, wind power in the United States had reached about 29,440MW of installed capacity, and in 2008 the nation surpassed Germany as the world's largest producer of wind generated power. The US now even has the world's largest wind farm in the shape of the Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas.

However, the wind farms in New York are attracting rather more negative attention by causing Doppler radar interference. The farms upstate are interfering significantly with National Weather Service Doppler radars, making it increasingly difficult to accurately predict developing weather systems - approaching lake effect snow storms in particular.

The wind farm in question is the 195-turbine Maple Ridge Wind Farm is less than 10 miles from the radar in Montague, on the snowy Tug Hill Plateau in Lewis County. The Montague radar is also used by the weather service in Albany, Binghamton and Burlington Vt., said Bill Hibbert, a meteorologist and radar specialist with the weather service in Buffalo.

The large turbines' spinning blades reflect some of the radar's signal, which can subsequently be falsely interpreted as strong winds or precipitation. But, as well as making the storms that come off lakes Erie and Ontario look stronger than they actually are, the turbines can also hide approaching storms from forecasters.

But, more worryingly, turbines have led to false tornado alerts in western regions.

"It's more of an annoyance than a critical issue," said Hibbert.

But he then added, "it's a growing problem, and there's not really anything that can be done about it right now."

Even though the issue is seen as more of an inconvenience than a serious problem, it does highlight the fact that along with all their benefits, renewable energy sources do not come without their problems. Take wind farms for example, as well as wind being totally free and zero-carbon-emitting, strong wind is intermittent which means power generation is inconsistent.

It looks like wind farms will be a mainstay of the nation's, and indeed the world's, energy future, but what can be said about their costs and benefits? Does one outweight the other?

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