Are wind turbines on water harmful for the environment?
The government in my country is planning to install sea wind turbines as a part of the transition to green energy, and the communist party led local town govenment body is against it.
Lots of sensible reasons are stated, like the impact on local people and fishermen, and the energy being used for capitalists and not for the people, but one of the reasons is them supposedly being harmful to the environment. Is there any proof for this?
I would get them saying it for wind turbines being installed in forests or mountains where you would have to cut down many trees, but I don't get it when it's at sea.
i have not heard of such turbine installations being worse than anything else, if that were the case i'd expect the NIMBYs to have a more specific complaint you could read.
there's basically no evidence of problems yet, but as it's a newer thing the researchers are reticent to certify '100% good'. the main issue seems to be they'll make it harder to catch fish nearby, but what is good for the environment and the fishing industry are usually opposite
I'm curious about that too. I don't know much about it, but I imagine building massive, constantly noisy metal constructions will have some sort of impact on the ecosystems in the oceans around them.
Development in an otherwise unimpacted area is never good for the environment, but the choice isn't usually wind vs nothing, it's offshore wind vs whatever is being used for power generation instead. Most other methods are worse for the environment.