Guest column: Apex's answers to wind energy questions
We have read a few letters to the editor about wind energy recently, and we want to offer a response. Wind energy is incredibly beneficial to counties, landowners, the power grid and the environment. Apex employees do this work because we see firsthand how families and communities benefit from clean energy projects. Honey Creek Wind will offer meaningful benefits to Crawford County, so we hope you will keep an open mind and read on for information about wind farms.
Wind energy projects are designed to avoid or minimize harm to birds and bats.
We are required to conduct extensive bird and bat studies prior to construction, as well as one to two years of post-construction monitoring studies. As needed throughout the life of a project, wind companies coordinate with federal and state agencies to ensure compliance with federal and state laws. Crucially, wind turbines do not cause population-level declines to local birds. In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded that the greatest number of bird fatalities come from feral cats (averaging 2.4 billion bird deaths per year), followed by the averages of building/glass collisions (600 million/year) and car collisions (215 million/year). Wind turbines are far lower on the list, with an estimated 235,000 bird fatalities per year (Source: USFWS 2017).
Shadow flicker is a predicable occurrence that is easily mitigated.
Shadow flicker is highly predictable, and wind farms are designed to minimize its effects on homes. Our design standards ensure that no participating home receives more than 40 hours per year of shadow flicker, and no nonparticipating home receives more than 30 hours per year. This is less than 1% of annual daylight hours and amounts to 7 minutes per day on average for participating homes. The State of Ohio has deemed these levels safe and appropriate.
The sound produced by wind turbines is not loud.
The Ohio Power Siting Board requires sound measured from the outside of a nonparticipating home to remain no more than 5 dBA above the nighttime ambient noise level. At Honey Creek Wind, the ambient noise level is about 40 dBA, meaning turbine sound cannot be louder than 45 dBA at a non-participating home. As a frame of reference for sound, heavy truck traffic is typically 80 dBA, conversational speech is typically 60 dBA, and the ambient sound in a library is typically about 50 dBA (Source: Minnesota Pollution Control Agency).
Infrasound is all around us and is not at dangerous levels when produced from wind turbines.
Low frequency sound called “infrasound” is all around us. It is produced by wind, waves, heartbeats, airplanes, appliances, cars, and yes, wind turbines. It’s not a new or unusual phenomenon, and it’s not harmful to human health at the level produced by a wind turbine. This fact is conclusively supported by many peer-reviewed studies, notable universities and doctors. For example, Dr. Jeffrey Ellenbogen, neurologist at Johns Hopkins University, states, “Claims about adverse health outcomes based on wind turbines are not based on scientific or medical literature” and adds: “… insomnia, hyper-tension and other diseases are common in the general population. When the question is, does a wind turbine influence these things? The answer is a blunt NO.”
It is rare for ice throw to have an effect on people or property.
Wind turbines have been safely operating for three decades in locations where icing can occur. They have ice detection equipment and monitoring systems that prevent the blades from spinning during icing conditions to allow for the ice to fall off naturally, and straight down. Any pieces of ice are shed directly underneath the turbine, posing no risk to the surrounding area. In a 2019 analysis conducted for the OPSB application for Emerson Creek Wind, it was concluded that a 2.2 pound fragment of ice has an impact probability of 1% within approximately 250 feet of a 650 foot turbine and 0.01% within 1,125 ft.
Fires in wind turbines are very rare.
It is very rare for wind turbine fires to occur. In the unusual cases when they have occurred, they most commonly start as electrical or mechanical fires, and they are contained in a small area of the turbine. Most electrical fires are self-limiting because they begin in the electrical cabinet within the turbine. Once they burn through the small amount of flammable material in the cabinet, they run out of fuel, and they go out. Apex offers training to local emergency service providers during the development process.
Life Flight operations can comfortably work alongside wind farms.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is heavily involved in the turbine siting process. All wind turbines will be required to meet FAA requirements and have specific GPS coordinates that help airspace users navigate around them. Helicopters can safely navigate around wind farms, and it is common practice to coordinate with EMS organizations like Life Flight. Apex has coordinated with Life Flight personnel in Ohio, and they have not expressed objections to other Ohio wind projects.
Tyler Fehrman is the field manager for Apex Clean Energy.
This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Apex Clean Energy offers its views on wind farms
