These disadvantages were researched by several organizations and people who are against wind farms. Some reasons might sound really stupid, but this is what they claim.
But before we check what are these disadvantages, let us talk a little, a bit about how wind farms work, because many people know nothing about them or maybe only a little. Wind farms consist of numerous wind turbine towers which are connected to each other with grid lines, cables, and transformers.
Windmills are used to make electricity out of kinetic force of the wind turning blades which produce rotation motion through a turbine generator which finally makes electricity for use in homes or business buildings etc... Formidable energy! But as you see, this idea looks really good, so there are really few disadvantages of it. But let’s take a look at these disadvantages in more detail.
1. Wind farms harm wildlife
This problem sounds really big but when you check it closely, the solution is very simple. Wind turbines are usually placed on top of hills, mountains, or in open fields far away from homes.
Wind farms are mostly constructed together with farm animals because they want to make money out of this by selling green energy such as electricity produced by wind farms to customers (homes and businesses). On the other side, there are some organizations that try to stop the construction of wind turbines because they think these towers endanger birds and bats which fly around them at nighttime.
One way how to solve this problem would be designing special traps which can catch and release these birds and bats safely into the original environment (if possible). Also, we should build these traps near wind turbines, so they will not be harmed.
Another good idea how to solve this problem would be designing towers that are more bird and bat-friendly by slowing down blades when they get close to the tower. This way there would be no need for catching them at all because these towers can catch any flying creatures around them without doing any harm.
2. Wind farms harm humans
In most cases wind farm is built far from human settlement or foggy area but if it is near home or business etc… then we might need to use some security measures to protect ourselves from falling parts of the turbine during construction and operations. Security equipment used should be able to slow down falling objects, so they don’t do as much damage as usual.
3. Wind farms are expensive to build
Yes, this is true, but in most cases when you build a wind farm on top of a hill or mountain it will be cheaper because you don’t need to protect the environment around your turbines. Also, what you can do is dig underground then the construction of turbine towers would start, and it will be less visible above the ground. Also, wind farms are more beneficial in really foggy areas where other types of energy production have no chance to survive (solar panels, etc.)
4. Wind farms kill birds and bats during nighttime.
This is very bad for business if we think about making money out of these turbines because people might get scared that they eat their pets at nighttimes etc... we want to solve this problem by designing special equipment such as traps which can catch and release birds and bats safely.
5. Wind turbines cannot be fitted into cities because of size
Yes, this is very true but when we look at it closely we can notice that there are towers used for mobile phone companies (for example in my country O2) and these towers are about 70-80 meters high. Also, in most cases when we build wind farms in foggy areas they will be much higher than in the case of building these turbines on a flat surface. So what we could do is use top-quality materials to make our project work. With these measures, our project might also cost more money but hopefully, it will pay off after a few years when we start making good amounts of money out of these turbines.
6. Wind farms require a lot of space to make them profitable
Yes, this is very true but we can always use renewables such as solar panels and other types of energy to reduce the size of our wind farm. Also, what we could do is use wind power in combination with water turbines (hydropower) because making one turbine bigger will increase the output power and at the same time, we don’t need to build it really big because we're already taking advantage of water falling down from nearby mountain/hill, etc...
Also, there are some areas that have no good conditions for building wind farms but they have enough water (rivers, lakes, or oceans) so what we can do maybe is take benefit from high tides by putting turbines under the water.
7. Wind turbines cannot be built in cities because of noise
Yes, this is very true but if we build wind farms away from the city near the foggy areas then most probably we will not have this problem at all. Also, what we can do is to use high-quality materials for making blades that will absorb most of the noise and vibrations so people around these turbines would feel them less or even not at all.
Also, another good idea of how to eliminate noise from the wind farms would be building one huge turbine which might look ugly but, it should work just fine without any sound at all, so it’s a win situation for both sides (for builders as well as for locals).
8. Wind farms are hard to construct on deep waters/offshore
Yes, this is hard but things are not as bad as they sound. For example, one German company has already made first prototype for a wind turbine which can generate around 2 megawatts of power which is enough to cover an average household's needs so there might be a future in this project after all.
9. Wind farms can only
Use fresh water because saltwater will corrode the turbine's construction etc... This is true however there are many techniques how to build underwater turbines that should work just fine.
Also, these turbines will need some heavy-duty equipment protection from corrosive effects because, without it, they would end up rusting or even breaking apart. However, before building anything one really should understand how to do this properly otherwise you could make things worse instead of better time and time again.
10. Wind farms indirectly harm marine life
Yes, this is true but we need to be careful how to make our turbines safe for any wildlife because it might end up killing them without us noticing at all. There are many companies out there that sell such equipment (marine life protection equipment) and for example, one company has even made a special coating that should make blades invisible or almost invisible for birds so they would not notice the blades until it’s too late.
Also, another good idea is siting wind turbines away from areas where there are lots of fishing activity because in this case most probably these turbines will have a bad impact on their income by scaring fish in a surrounding area away so if somebody wants to build big wind farm then he/she should think about this factor as well.
Conclusion
As you can see there are many good points on why wind farms are a bad idea but in the end, most of them depend on how we will solve this problem so wind power is still an option no matter what.
There are some areas where it’s almost impossible to build big turbines because of water depth etc.. but there are many other options like building offshore or using small/mini turbines which should be just fine for covering all household needs.
Also, my advice is that if somebody wants to build one city with lots of city buildings then it would be a better choice not to use wind farms at all and just stick with hydropower, solar panels or even go nuclear but this last option might prove more expensive than cheap energy which comes from the wind farm in long run.
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