Myths about 'harms' of renewable energy only serve the fossil fuel industry
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"Imagine instead of fearing climate change we planned for it, embraced it and funded it," proposed climate activist Tara Shine last week.
The misguided belief that ‘it’s too late’ to act has been co-opted by fossil fuel interests and those advocating for them. It is another way of legitimizing business as usual.
One tactic is to push the idea that renewable energy will damage the environment. A key example is the supposed threat wind turbines pose to birds. Climate change is a far greater threat to bird populations than wind turbines and risks can be minimised by locating wind farms away from migration routes.
‘Wind turbine syndrome’ — a series of afflictions including lung cancer, skin cancer, haemorrhoids, weight gain or weight loss has been suggested, without any scientific basis, as being caused by proximity to wind farms. Donald Trump was quoted in the Washington Post (2019) as suggesting that wind farms ‘cause cancer.’
Solar energy has been suggested as being damaging to the environment. While solar panels have an environmental footprint — in terms of land use, water use, potential release of hazardous materials while manufacturing — that footprint is minuscule compared to the environmental impact of fossil fuels — coal, natural gas, and oil.
Energy poverty is another argument that is based on the flawed premise that lack of access to fossil fuels poses the main threat to people in the developing world. In most of the developing world, renewable energy in the form of solar power and hydropower is far more practical because it does not require massive power plants and hundreds of kilometres of power lines.
One million people have been displaced by drought in Somalia according to aid agency figures released this month, after four consecutive failed rainy seasons in the Horn of Africa with a fifth rainy season expected to fail later this year.
Another scare tactic is to suggest that renewable energy will take away jobs. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) stated there were twelve million jobs in renewable energy in 2020 — this compares to a dying coal industry with jobs disappearing because of increased automation as well as competition from cheaper energy sources.
The suggestion is made that renewables just won’t work. The wind isn’t always blowing, and the sunshine is very often blocked by cloud — especially in winter when heating is essential. And batteries don’t have infinite storage capacity.
Michael Mann in (2021) states smart grid sources have overcome these limitations — not just in the future, but right now.
Data from the US Energy Administration identifies seven countries at or very nearly 100 per cent renewable power — Iceland, (100 percent), Paraguay (100), Costa Rica (99), Norway (98.5), Austria (80), Brazil (75) and Denmark (69.4).
Natural gas is primarily composed of methane, or it can be cooled into a liquid — liquified natural gas (LNG). Heavily promoted by Trump in the US and by the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison — even as bush fires raged in the summer of 2020 — it has been characterised as a ‘bridge fuel’ to wean us off more carbon intensive fuels like coal as we develop renewables.
Note the ongoing discussion about the need for LNG terminals in Ireland, at Tarbert and Whitegate.
As a greenhouse gas, natural gas is a fossil fuel – methane is nearly one hundred times more potent as a greenhouse gas (GHG) than carbon dioxide over twenty years. The evidence shows us that the spike in atmospheric methane levels in recent decades is responsible for as much as 25% of the warming during this period. Increased use of natural gas for power generation is likely to crowd out investment in a true zero carbon solution in the power sector — renewable energy. The solution to a fossil fuel problem cannot be a fossil fuel.
Clean coal is another suggestion to delay a move away from fossil fuels — sequester carbon dioxide released from coal in power plants and bury it — carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). The evidence demonstrates this is an expensive waste of time, capturing teaspoons rather than shovelfuls of coal extracted from the ground.
What about geoengineering? The possibility of unintended consequences is crucial — a botched bioengineering attempt cannot be fixed. Shooting reflective sulphate aerosols into the stable upper part of the atmosphere where they would reside for years has the potential for adverse climate effects including blocking the escape of heat energy from the Earth’s surface — climate models simulations indicate that the continents would potentially get drier with worsening droughts. There is also the risk of sulphate particles making it down to the Earth’s surface leading to acidification of rivers and lakes. We have already seen the results of acid rain.
Ocean iron fertilisation — generating phytoplankton which takes up carbon dioxide when it photosynthesizes — by sprinkling iron dust into the ocean. When the phytoplankton die, they tend to sink to the ocean bottom. Experiments have shown that the scheme doesn’t really work — there is also the real risk of ‘red tide’ algae blooms that create oceanic dead zones. So no — not a runner.
Trees that take carbon out of the atmosphere and artificial enhancement of the weathering of rocks are other expensive non-runners in terms of real impact on carbon emissions.
Could afforestation and regenerative agriculture make a major dent in carbon emissions? Michael Mann in suggests that at best these techniques could remove 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. Currently we are generating 55 billion tons per year through fossil fuel burning and other activities. This means that carbon dioxide levels would continue to rise, just at a rate that is roughly half as fast.
With wildfires become an increasingly prevalent feature of summers in Australia, the US and Europe, any carbon sequestration by forests could easily be lost.
Nuclear is also an option that is freshly under discussion. Challenges include the safe and long-term disposal of nuclear waste; environmental and human threats post by potential accidents or war — as is currently playing out in Ukraine. Climate change itself poses increased risks to nuclear power plants. Extreme droughts, as in France this summer, have led to reactors being shut down as the surrounding waters become too warm to provide the necessary cooling.
Peer- reviewed research demonstrates authoritatively that using current renewable energy and energy- storage technology — we could meet up to 80 percent of global energy demand by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2050 — through increased energy efficiency, electrification of all energy sectors and decarbonisation of the grid through a mix of generation sources, including residential rooftop solar and solar plants, onshore and offshore wind farms, wave energy, geothermal energy, and hydroelectric and tidal energy. The precise mix of technologies would depend on the location, season, and time of day.
We don’t need a miracle. The solution is already here. We just need to deploy it rapidly and at massive scale. It comes down to political will and economic incentives. Being able to debunk the myths facilitates the path to 100 per cent renewables in the next two decades.
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