The goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many.
Category: Environment & Climate Change
Facts relating to Environment & Climate Change known to be true and yet often disputed amongst the public
Superfact 17: Fossil fuels kill a lot more birds per gigawatt hour than wind power does. Cats, windows, cars, poison and powerlines are examples of things that kill a lot more birds than wind power does. Wind power killing birds is not the huge environmental problem it is often made out to be.
Wind power killing birds is often mentioned as a slam dunk environmentally based argument against wind power and evidence for the hypocrisy of environmentalists. This is misguided. Wind power killing birds is a real problem and it should be addressed, and it is being addressed. No energy source comes without environmental problems. However, wind turbines account for only a small fraction of overall bird deaths compared to other human causes. It is not a good argument against wind power, and it does not demonstrate any hypocrisy by environmentalists. In fact, a study made in 2012 (overview here) concluded that fossil fuels killed 24 million birds per year in the US, which correspond to 35 times more birds per GWh than wind power kills according to this study. Even though this study and other similar studies are estimates based on assumptions that are far from perfect, they are good indicators that replacing fossil fuels with wind power likely saves birds rather than kills them.
In any case, as this Wikipedia article states, collisions with wind turbines are a minor source of bird mortality compared to other human causes. According to the graph below cats kill 5,600 times more birds than wind power and collisions with powerlines kills 99 times more birds than wind power, and yet we rarely discuss these problems. Even though these numbers are estimates they are mostly confirmed by other studies and analysis, as this overview from MIT and this analysis by Hannah Richie shows. The numbers aren’t the same, but they make the same point. FYI Hannah Richie is the deputy editor and lead researcher at Our World in Data. Our World in Data is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems. They are associated with Oxford University and is one of the most respected statistics, analysis and research organizations in the world.
From Wikipedia: Universiteit van Nederland, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsAn alternative graph taken from Hannah Richie / Our World in Data, using alternative sources essentially showing the same thing. Sources: Loss et al. (2015), (2013), US Fish and Wildlife Service; Subramnayan et al. (2012), American Bird Conservancy (2021).
Wind power has been on the receiving end of false claims, nonsense, and strange rumors for quite some time. It is not the only energy source maligned by false information, but it is an interesting case study in misinformation regarding energy sources. To read about nonsense and rumors about wind power click here.
The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call Newstrade. Important facts that we know to be true and yet they are surprising, shocking or disputed among non-experts. Special facts that any well-informed person should know.
Paperback – $18.95 on Amazon – future release March 25, 2025.
Hardcover – Publisher : Princeton University Press; First Edition (September 12, 2023), ISBN-10 : 0691177295, ISBN-13 : 978-0691177298, 240 pages, item weight : 1 pounds, dimensions : 5.75 x 1 x 8.5 inches, it costs $18.95 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Kindle – Publisher : Princeton University Press (September 12, 2023), ASIN : B0C5SBB26C, 229 pages, it costs $15.37 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Audio – Publisher : Princeton University Press (September 19, 2023), ASIN : B0CF6WHBVX, listening length 7 hours, narrator : Christopher Ragland, it costs $0.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of Elemental. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardcover version of the book.
Amazon’s description of the book
It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future.
Taking readers from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. He describes how single-celled cyanobacteria and plants harnessed them to wildly proliferate across the oceans and the land, only to eventually precipitate environmental catastrophes.
He then brings us to the present, and shows how these elements underpin the success of human civilization, and how their mismanagement threatens similarly catastrophic unintended consequences. But, Porder argues, if we can learn from our world-changing predecessors, we can construct a more sustainable future.
Blending conversational storytelling with the latest science, Porder takes us deep into the Amazon, across fresh lava flows in Hawaii, and to the cornfields of the American Midwest to illuminate a potential path to sustainability, informed by the constraints imposed by life’s essential elements and the four-billion-year history of life on Earth.
The Story of HOCNP the Five Elements Essential to all Life
The author, a biogeochemist, explains why five elements, hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) are essential to all life. As an example, in the sunlit waters of the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, a lack of Nitrogen creates a water desert with no life. Lifeforms that are able extract more of these elements have a competitive advantage.
This book focuses on three world-changing organisms that were able to extract unprecedented amounts of these elements from the environment also resulting in success and huge increases in the total mass of lifeforms, as well as consequences causing mass extinction eventually followed by an entirely new planet. Note this book is not about mass extinctions, which have happened at least five times, but something more profound. It is about planet-changing events.
During the first two billion years of earth’s history there had been no oxygen in the environment; oxygen was always bound to some other atom, such as hydrogen in water. There was life back then but in the form of primitive bacteria using a primitive form of photosynthesis involving sulfur. Then came cyanobacteria which had invented a more effective form of photosynthesis, as well as a way of extracting nitrogen using a process called nitrogen fixation. The two-atom nitrogen in the air is nearly inert and very difficult to use. This made cyanobacteria extremely successful.
However, one consequence was that the carbon dioxide was largely removed from the atmosphere, while the atmosphere was filled up by oxygen, which is a byproduct of the new form of photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that warms the planet, something scientists had already figured out in the 1850’s. With much less carbon dioxide, the earth got very cold, and a snowball earth disaster followed. However, in the long run the oxygen paved the way for the existence of multicellular life and animals. The planet changed.
About 400 million years ago plants was a new type organism that was able to extract water (hydrogen and oxygen) from land as well as phosphorus. Their success led to another depletion of carbon dioxide causing another ice period, but they paved the way for life on land. The planet changed again. Now humans, the third type of organism, are extracting all five elements in unprecedented amounts causing global warming and other unintended consequences.
Unlike cyanobacteria and plants, we are not doing this to primarily extract nutrients but for transportation, heating and consumer products and we can control and predict the consequences of our actions.
As evidence for global warming / climate change the author discusses the temperature measurement records of various organizations (NOAA etc.). That is the smoking gun.
However, he also mentions things like the fact that the vast majority of glaciers in the world are retreating or disappearing and the fact that anyone above the age of 50 who comes from a northern climate (that would be me) can attest to the fact that winters have gotten noticeably shorter snow seasons and warmer summers. That is true and it is a good thing to mention because there are those who are quick to dismiss temperature records as big hoaxes.
The second part of his global warming discussion, the evidence that we humans are the cause of the current warming, leaves something out in my opinion. He explains why the various climate models provide incontrovertible evidence that the chief cause for the current global warming is our burning of fossil fuels, despite the models being far from perfect. I totally agree with that, but once again there are those who are not willing to accept climate models as solid evidence, and therefore you should mention other evidence as well, which he does not do.
Examples of evidence that we are the cause and that does not involve complex models would be, no known natural cause can explain the current warming, the upper troposphere is cooling while the lower troposphere is warming, the arctic is warming much faster than average, nights are warming much faster than days, etc. Those are things that would not happen if the cause was a hotter sun (which we also kept a record of) or an orbital cycle.
In addition, spectral analysis shows the cause to be the adding of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and various isotope studies show that the carbon emissions come from the burning of hundreds of millions of years old carbon. Why not mention that as well? I know all this is baked into the models, but simple explanations appear more convincing to many. I am not taking off a star for it, but I felt it was a missed opportunity.
One environmental threat that you don’t hear much about is the depletion of phosphorus. This is something that may be far into the future but something that seems impossible to solve once it arrives and could evolve into an enormous food crisis. This was certainly a unpleasant surprise to me.
The book explains many processes and concepts, biogeochemistry, primitive photosynthesis using sulfur, photosynthesis using water (cyanobacteria) and releasing oxygen, nitrogen fixation, endosymbiosis, how plants extract phosphorus from the ground, the evolution of plants, the slow carbon cycles, the fast carbon cycle, the effect of volcanoes on climate, respiration, why can trust certain aspects of climate models, nitrogen fixation, nitrogenase, the immense effect fertilizers have had on food production, the Haber-Bosch process, earth’s climate history, why phosphorus is both finite and irreplaceable, the danger to aquifers, how we have changed ecosystems, and more.
Despite that the author makes himself understood. He explains complex concepts, so they are easy to understand and connects them all in a logical way that makes a lot of sense. So don’t be afraid that the book will be difficult to read. You may just learn a lot.
The author considers climate change / global warming to be our most serious environmental challenge, but he offers a lot of suggestions for a way forward. He discusses a lot of interesting technological solutions. I think he may be a bit gloomier than necessary but overall, what he says is very insightful and somewhat hopeful.
Again, I was very impressed by the organization of the book. It is easy to create a mess when you try to connect a lot of different concepts and complex science into a logical narrative, but he was very successful. It was a delight to read this book, it was interesting and full of facts, which were new to me, and I think are very important. I learned a lot and I think it is a very well written page turner.
Back cover of Elemental. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the kindle version of the book.
Superfact 16: Wind power is providing more than a quarter of Texas Power. In 2023, wind represented 28.6 percent of Texas energy generation. In 2022, wind power accounted for about 25 percent of Texas’ energy generation.
I am referring to this fact as a super fact because, it is true, important, and yet it’s a fact that is difficult to believe for many people. That wind power, allegedly a marginal energy source, is successful in fossil fuel loving Texas is hard to believe. I have come across what appears to be well informed people who were certain it was nonsense. However, as you can see from the Texas government links above, it is true, something they could not dispute.
The reason for the success of wind power in Texas is economics, which is another fact that may be surprising to some. Fossil fuels are a major source of income for us in Texas, but everyone also wants to save money. Texas has its own electric grid, it’s deregulated, and organized along free market principles.
When companies sell their energy (to ERCOT) it works like a continuous auction. The one with the lowest price is picked first and allowed to contribute with whatever they are able to and also, of course, considering what the grid-powerlines can carry safely. Naturally, the price of wind in Texas includes federal subsidies, which make it even cheaper.
However, all energy sources are subsidized, and fossil fuels have a long history of government subsidies. Below is the average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy according to Lazard. Levelized means that construction costs, land rent, and other costs not directly caused by electricity generation are taken into consideration. Notice how cheap wind is (blue line). This is for the United States not just Texas. I don’t have any numbers, but I’ve heard that for Texas solar is the cheapest .
Average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy. Notice that the light blue line indicates that wind power is pretty cheap. Mir-445511, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.
Affordability
Windpower is not only relatively cheap. Wind power is one of the most efficient and sustainable energy sources available. The energy required to manufacture, install, and maintain wind turbines is small compared to the energy they produce over their lifespan. This is known as their energy return on investment (EROI), which is quite favorable for wind energy.
The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) states that the average wind farm will pay back the energy that was used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation. This article in the journal Renewable Energy found that the average windfarm produces 20-25 times more energy during its operational life than was used to construct and install its turbines. It included data from 119 turbines across 50 sites going back 30 years.
It is important to be aware that there are many false claims floating around about wind power. The sound from wind power stations does not cause cancer, it does not use any other energy sources while operating; it solely harnesses the kinetic energy from the wind to generate electricity, meaning it only relies on wind to function as its primary energy source. Windpower is not a major cause if bird deaths. To read more about false claims about wind power click here.
There are positive and negative aspects of wind power, like any other source of energy. One issue with wind power (and solar) is that it is an intermittent source of energy. When the wind is not blowing you need other sources of energy (until there is sufficient energy storage). This is less of a problem when you have a mix of energy sources as Texas does.
“Nonsense and Rumors About Wind Power” is not a super-fact post but just what I consider interesting information regarding nonsense and rumors about wind power.
Wind power has been on the receiving end of false claims, nonsense, and strange rumors for a while. It is not the only energy source maligned by false information. Another example is Nuclear Power. However, this post is about some of the incorrect claims about wind power that I have come across. I am starting out with three bizarre claims.
False claim : Wind Power requires an additional power source to operate (like a diesel engine)
This bizarre claim is akin to saying that sailboats need a diesel motor to sail. If you get something to rotate (a turbine), whether it is pushed by running water, wind, or an engine, and you connect it to a coil in a magnetic field (generator), you get electricity. This is high school physics. You don’t need anything else. It is the principle behind hydro power, nuclear power, coal power, gas power, and wind power.
For a wind power station, the moving air rotates the wind turbine’s blades. That turning motion spins a generator just downwind from the blades (or rotor) in the nacelle, which also stores all the other working parts of a turbine. The generator produces electricity. When you read about how wind power works it says nothing about an additional power source needed (or click here).
For fun let’s also ask Google AI : Does wind power use other energy sources while operating?
Google AI: No, wind power itself does not use any other energy sources while operating; it solely harnesses the kinetic energy from the wind to generate electricity, meaning it only relies on wind to function as its primary energy source.
However, it should be noted that wind power is intermittent, so if it is part of a power grid other power sources or energy storage/batteries may need to be used more when wind speeds are too low to generate electricity.
Also, as is true with any power source, energy is needed when constructing wind power plants. In addition, a small amount of external electricity may be needed for startup and maintenance. It is possible that these facts were misunderstood and turned into “Wind Power requires an additional power source to operate” by confused listeners.
False claim : Wind Power generates less power than it consumes
This is another bizarre claim made by confused politicians (here in Texas). If wind power generated less power than it consumed, why would anyone invest in it?
The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) states that the average wind farm will pay back the energy that was used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation. This article in the journal Renewable Energy found that the average windfarm produces 20-25 times more energy during its operational life than was used to construct and install its turbines. It included data from 119 turbines across 50 sites going back 30 years.
For fun let’s ask ChatGPT this question : Does wind Power generate less power than it consumes?
ChatGPT : Wind power does not consume more energy than it generates. In fact, wind power is one of the most efficient and sustainable energy sources available. The energy required to manufacture, install, and maintain wind turbines is small compared to the energy they produce over their lifespan. This is known as their energy return on investment (EROI), which is quite favorable for wind energy.
False claim : The sound from wind power stations cause cancer
Donald Trump stated on April 2, 2019, in a speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee that “The noise (from windmills) causes cancer.” A poll was conducted in Iowa, a state where wind power is thriving and only 1% of registered voters agreed with Trump that wind turbines cause cancer, 84% disagreed and 15% did not know. So, it is not a widespread belief, but it does exist. The claim was quickly debunked by the American Cancer Society.
On the contrary, the pollution from the fossil fuel power plants that wind power will likely replace causes cancer.
Just for fun let’s ask ChatGPT this question : Does windpower cause cancer?
ChatGPT : No, wind power does not cause cancer. There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that wind turbines or wind energy have any connection to causing cancer. This misconception might stem from misinformation or misunderstandings about how wind turbines work. Wind power is a clean and renewable energy source, and studies have shown that it does not pose significant health risks.
Some people have raised concerns about possible health effects from wind turbines, such as “wind turbine syndrome,” which includes symptoms like headaches or sleep disturbances attributed to the noise or vibrations of turbines. However, extensive studies have not found conclusive evidence to support these claims either. The noise levels and vibrations from wind turbines are generally well within safety limits set by health and environmental standards.
Next, I am going to focus on three claims which are partially true but that are greatly exaggerated and need to be understood in context.
False claim : Wind power kills an enormous amount of birds causing an environmental disaster
Wind power killing birds is often presented as if it is a huge environmental problem and only a problem for wind power. When presented this way it is false. A study made in 2012 claimed that fossil fuels killed 24 million birds per year in the US, which correspond to 35 times more birds per GWh than wind power kills. That means that wind power saves the life of birds as it replaces fossil fuels.
In addition, the biggest bird killer is not fossil fuels but cats. Cats kill 5,600 times more birds than wind power stations and 77 times more birds than fossil fuels. See the graph from Wikipedia below. The problem with wind power plants killing birds should be addressed (and has been addressed) but let’s be honest about the scale of the problem.
False claim : Wind power is only a marginal energy source
Wind power currently accounts for around 7.8% of the world’s electricity up from 3.5% in 2015 and 1.63% in 2010. Wind power accounts for 10% of US electricity and 57.7% of Denmark’s electricity. It may also some as a surprise to some that in the fossil fuel capital of the world, the great state of Texas, where I live, wind represented 28.6 percent of the energy generation in 2023, second only to natural gas (41.8 percent). That is not a marginal energy source.
I can add that Texans are in general not favorable towards wind, and the local politicians are hostile towards wind. Fossil fuel is after all our bread and butter. Why wind power is so prominent in Texas is because of the Texas ERCOT system in which energy sources compete on price and the cheapest always goes first. In practice that means wind goes first.
Wind power used to be expensive. It has been and still is subsidized by the government, but that is basically true for all energy sources, not just wind. Below is the average unsubsidized levelized cost of energy according to Lazard (from Wikipedia). Notice that the light blue line indicates that wind power is pretty cheap.
This is not one of the super fact posts. It is just a post related to an interest of mine that is informational. I volunteer for an organization called Citizens Climate Lobby, or CCL. CCL is a bipartisan organization that works with both Democrats and Republicans to create the political will for climate solutions. During the month of August CCL is promoting what is called electrification. Clean energy is taking the world with storm, but energy / electric power is not the only source of carbon emissions / greenhouse gases.
Take for example, transportation. Most cars still use gasoline and to move towards a fossil fuel free future we must move towards using transportation that uses less fossil fuels such as EV cars. We need to electrify transportation. Another aspect of electrification is replacing gas stoves with induction stoves, installing solar panels, as well as lowering the energy use of your house.
Lowering the energy consumption of your house lowers your emissions. Photo by Frans van Heerden on Pexels.com
EV Cars
At least here in Texas it is quite common to believe that EV cars do not reduce emissions. After all EV cars use electricity from the dirty grid, right? Often this is said to environmentalists and people who care about fossil fuels emissions as if they don’t understand that the electricity for EV cars typically comes from the dirty grid. However, they do know that. In fact, they know a little bit more. EV cars are much more efficient than Internal Combustion Engine cars , or ICE, and therefore the emissions caused by EVs via the electrical grid, even a coal powered grid, is significantly less per mile. In fact, replacing gasoline-powered cars with EVs saves energy, regardless of the energy source used to recharge the EVs. For an ICE 16-25% of the original energy goes to the wheels whereas for an EV 87-91% of the original energy goes to the wheels.
16-25% of original energy goes to the wheels. Data from FuelEconomy.gov, Image by Karin Kirk for Yale Connections.87-91% of original energy goes to the wheels. Data from FuelEconomy.gov, Image by Karin Kirk for Yale Connections.
On the other hand, it takes more energy to manufacture an EV battery for an EV car than it does to produce a combustion engine. So, the production of an electric vehicle does emit more carbon than a petrol car. However, the lower emissions resulting from driving an EV means that an electric car quickly pays back its debt, so to speak. It is typically paid back within two years.
According to Hannah Richie at Our World in Data the statistics show that switching from an average ICE to an equally sized EV will save 1.2 tons of carbon emissions per person and year. That is a lot considering that the average carbon footprint per year is 4 tons worldwide and 14.4 tons per year for an American. Hannah Richie at Our World in Data also states that other environmental damages related to EVs such as mining for minerals are less than mining and extraction for fossil fuel cars, and she claims that the price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 98% over the last three decades.
EVs are becoming increasingly common. According to Our World in Data in 2022, 88% of all cars sold in Norway were EVs and 54% of all cars in Sweden were EVs. The United States is lagging a bit at 7.5% but there is a tax credit $7,000.00 for new EVs and a $4,000.00 tax credit for buying used EVs. I should add that we have not yet bought an EV because after I took early retirement, I did not need a car. We just share my wife’s hybrid, which we hardly ever drive.
Induction Stoves
We bought an electric stove, an induction stove, a couple of years ago when our previous stove stopped working. They come with an $840.00 rebate. I’ve read that professional chefs prefer gas stoves. However, our induction stove provides everything we need for our cooking needs and my beer brewing needs and it is easier to clean. If you are a professional chef you may want to be able switch the high heat on and off quicker, but we are not professional chefs even though the food we cook is delicious.
Another downside of an induction stove is that if the power goes out you can’t cook, but that has not been a problem for us. Considering that we get our electricity from a power company, Green Mountain Energy, that utilizes renewable energy, wind and solar, you can claim that our stove is 100% fossil fuel free.
Our induction stove with the lights in the kitchen turned off.
Heat Pumps
Air source heat pumps, which are the most common type of heat pumps, are a great, energy efficient choice for heating your home and water and as well as being low maintenance, they can help to cut your heating costs and lower your carbon footprint. An air source heat pump absorbs heat from the air outside a building and releases it inside. It uses the same vapor-compression refrigeration process and much the same equipment as an air conditioner, but in the opposite direction.
Air-to-air heat pumps provide hot or cold air directly to rooms. Heat pumps are the main way to phase furnaces but are also typically more efficient than other types of heaters and air conditioners and thus they reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is an up to $8,000.00 upfront discount for heat pumps and a 30% tax credit up to $2,000.00. I should say we do not have a heat pump.
Air heat pump installed on the exterior facade of the old house. Sustainable heating solutions for old construction. Stock Photo ID: 2349325553 by Snapshot freddy.
Rooftop solar
Another great thing that we have been thinking about but do not have yet is rooftop solar. Rooftop solar power system, or rooftop photo voltaic systems, consist of electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. Residential rooftop solar power systems typically feature a capacity of about 5–20 kilowatts.
The average American household uses 1.2 kilowatts on average. Most rooftop solar systems are connected to the grid and can feed the extra power into the grid for compensation. I should add this is not entirely without difficulty. There are also hybrid systems which include any combination of wind turbines, diesel generators, and batteries for electricity on demand. There is a 30% tax credit for rooftop solar.
Saving energy is not exactly the same thing as electrification but it is a related topic. If you electrify your home and also reduce your energy needs, you are reducing emissions.
A few years ago, we changed the insulation in our house to reduce our energy needs and our electric bill. It made a difference. We also did weatherstripping, installed three pane windows and high security doors, that were well-insulated and reduced heat-loss. We received significant tax credits for doing this. I don’t remember how much, but it was several thousand dollars. I can add that you get a $150 tax credit for a home energy audit.
What do you think about electrification and energy savings?
Do you have additional ideas for electrification and energy savings?
Newstrade