The U.S. Dept of Energy website has a list of advantages and challenges of wind energy. It lists six points for advantages of wind energy and four points as challenges for general applications for capturing wind energy. These points have been copied from the government website and listed below. Each point has a breakout [button] where the point is assessed for its relevance to wind turbines used on mountain ridges in rural regions of West Virginia and, in particular, Pendleton County, West Virginia. From: https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/advantages-and-challenges-wind-energy Advantages and Challenges of Wind Energy Wind energy offers many advantages, which explains why it's one of the fastest-growing energy sources in the world. To further expand wind energy’s capabilities and community benefits, researchers are working to address technical and socio-economic challenges in support of a decarbonized electricity future. Learn more about ongoing research to take advantage of these benefits and tackle wind energy challenges. Advantages of Wind Power •Wind power creates good-paying jobs. There are nearly 150,000 people working in the U.S. wind industry across all 50 states, and that number continues to grow. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wind turbine service technicians are the fastest growing U.S. job of the decade. Offering career opportunities ranging from blade fabricator to asset manager, the wind industry has the potential to support hundreds of thousands of more jobs by 2050. Unless wind turbine and blade manufacturing facilities are located in West Virginia, and unless local West Virginia residents are trained to become the service technicians and managers for local wind turbine power sites, very few permanent jobs will be created for local West Virginians. There may be some temporary benefits from hires for crews to install wind turbines and power transmission lines and roadways to these locations, but these jobs will mostly vanish quickly after installations are complete. •Wind power is a domestic resource that enables U.S. economic growth. In 2022, wind turbines operating in all 50 states generated more than 10% of the net total of the country’s energy. That same year, funding in new wind projects added $20 billion to the U.S. economy. Though this point is true, it would be true for any “domestic resource” such as road and bridge infrastructural improvements and any business development (such as coal mining – also an energy source). It is more of a blanket government statement for anything relevant to economic growth. •Wind power is a clean and renewable energy source. Wind turbines harness energy from the wind using mechanical power to spin a generator and create electricity. Not only is wind an abundant and inexhaustible resource, but it also provides electricity without burning any fuel or polluting the air. Wind energy in the United States helps avoid 336 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually—equivalent to the emissions from 73 million cars. This is the main point for the advantage of wind energy production – there is no counter-argument here. However, the question of whether wind energy should be developed any place where the wind blows is not addressed. A look at “windy” areas in the U.S. shows that most of West Virginia has very little wind-generating power compared with many other regions, such as the Central Plains states. Selecting the mountains and ridgelines of West Virginia, where there is the most wind but on very limited spaces, and where the natural, unblemished beauty of the state is on its fullest display, suggests exploitation of these sparsely populated regions for predominantly big-business gains for outside investors. [Insert Figure 1 from below, or link to figures] •Wind power benefits local communities. Wind projects deliver an estimated $2 billion in state and local tax payments and land-lease payments each year. Communities that develop wind energy can use the extra revenue to put towards school budgets, reduce the tax burden on homeowners, and address local infrastructure projects. The main point made here leaves out whether the communities themselves will actually benefit very much. Local taxation can help with county-level funding, however, with lower taxes for land owners leasing land to wind turbine companys for turbines and power lines, there is very significant loss of property value. This will also be the case for neighbors to these installations for which there is no leasing benefit from the companies. Wind power companies have provided funds for local communities, in terms of small grants, however, the thousands of dollars for these grants is several orders of magnitude less than the millions, even billions of dollars in profits that these companies are generating. Unless there is significant restructuring of tax laws and funds created for local communities, those communities may have a much greater negative impact from the installation and presence of wind turbines in key areas of their land. •Wind power is cost-effective. Land-based, utility-scale wind turbines provide one of the lowest-priced energy sources available today. Furthermore, wind energy’s cost competitiveness continues to improve with advances in the science and technology of wind energy. The cost-effectiveness of the ever-improving wind energy technology is not in dispute here. The question is whether it is as cost-effective as it has been shown to be at other “wind farms”, for which the sites are more favorable toward cost-effective use of the land (see next point). An ideal setting for wind energy power production is on a site where multi-use of the land space can be made, such as farms and ranchlands and oil production fields. This has been shown to be highly advantageous for the use these sites, and even a source of pride for showing how efficiently this open space is being used, for the benefit of many communities, large and small. This is NOT the case for installation of wind turbines and large-tower power lines in the mountains of West Virginia. •Wind turbines work in different settings. Wind energy generation fits well in agricultural and multi-use working landscapes. Wind energy is easily integrated in rural or remote areas, such as farms and ranches or coastal and island communities, where high-quality wind resources are often found. Multi-use working landscapes are the major advantage of wind energy installations; placing wind turbines on working farms is a double use of the land, and even more, installations on cattle farms with oil derricks is a triple use of the land. Many large agricultural settings are near already existing roadways and expressways, where bringing in large, manufactured structures (wind turbine towers and blades, and placement of new power transmission lines) does not require new roads to be built or significant terraforming of land space. These roadways are often close to existing power transmission lines, making further installation of power lines unnecessary. In stark contrast to this, the ridgelines of West Virginia are forest-covered nature preserves and which would require extensive heavy-duty roadways to be installed, extending the destruction of these preserves to not just the ridgeline, but to the sides up to and around these forest preserves. Challenges of Wind Power •Wind power must compete with other low-cost energy sources. When comparing the cost of energy associated with new power plants, wind and solar projects are now more economically competitive than gas, geothermal, coal, or nuclear facilities. However, wind projects may not be cost-competitive in some locations that are not windy enough. Next-generation technology, manufacturing improvements, and a better understanding of wind plant physics can help bring costs down even more. Cost-competitiveness of wind power is dependent on many factors, not just the technology. Getting all the building materials to the construction sites on the higher elevations of undeveloped forestlands is far more expensive than installation on existing farmlands and ranches, which already have surfaces that are amenable to roadways and tower installations and maintenance. Wind turbines on mountain ridges, with wildfire-prone forests surrounding them, also require large zones of additional space safeguards; these land areas are much larger than those needed for flat farmlands (as in many central and mid-west states) because the line of wind turbines will only allow two closest neighboring turbine towers, whereas the flat terrain of farms allows a two-dimensional, grid patterns for which land areas are shared by more turbines (four closest neighboring wind turbines; see Figure 3). •Ideal wind sites are often in remote locations. Installation challenges must be overcome to bring electricity from wind farms to urban areas, where it is needed to meet demand. Upgrading the nation’s transmission network to connect areas with abundant wind resources to population centers could significantly reduce the costs of expanding land-based wind energy. In addition, offshore wind energy transmission and grid interconnection capabilities are improving. This point is particularly relevant to wind power installations on mountain ridgelines, for which installation is more difficult as well as most often much farther from urban areas where the demand is greatest. These ridgelines are not only remote but also very limited, in comparison to the vast areas of the windy central and midwestern states in the U.S. (Figure 1), and thus, the ridgeline offer little net gain to the overall U.S. power grid. •Turbines produce noise and alter visual aesthetics. Wind farms have different impacts on the environment compared to conventional power plants, but similar concerns exist over both the noise produced by the turbine blades and the visual impacts on the landscape. Criticism of this point will state that local communities often do not have these concerns, and even show trends toward finding the visual impact of no conern, that many community members see the power production from green technology as positive. These communities are often in sparsely populated areas where the wind turbines have multi-use land sites, such as production farmlands. In contrast, mountainous ridgelines have a much higher aesthetic impact on both local communities and travelers who come to the mountains as the driving economic factor for eco-tourism. As for noise levels from the wind turbines and spinning blades, this is still an open question, with much recent research being carried out to determine what effects it has on those who live near such wind turbines. Many anecdotal reports from local community members who live near existing wind turbine power generation site have registered many complaints, including negative health effects and increased stress levels. In West Virginia, where ridgelines rise 200 to 500 feet above a more gradual mountain slope region, the taller wind turbine towers, currently under consideration for installation on these sites, have a turbine hub height of 600 feet, with a blade radius that would extend the height to over 1000 feet. These ridgelines have prominence-feature elevations (heights above the local valleys where communities and major roads are located) averaging well under 500 feet. Thus, the overall heights of these towers will present a ridgeline of towers more than twice the height above the height of the aesthetically appreciated mountain prominence. •Wind plants can impact local wildlife. Although wind projects rank lower than other energy developments in terms of wildlife impacts, research is still needed to minimize wind-wildlife interactions. Advancements in technologies, properly siting wind plants, and ongoing environmental research are working to reduce the impact of wind turbines on wildlife. This disadvantage of wind turbines, though apparently down-played in this government statement, is far more relevant to wind turbines located in more natural settings, in particular, the forests of mountaintops and ridgelines. The contours of these ridgelines limit the passages of bird migration routes, placing such flocks in higher jeopardy from collisions with turbine blades. Other critiques (on the “con” side) not included are: The large amount of destruction of natural structures (mountaintops and ridges) will impact water runoff, with an increased and unknown erosion effect on downhill terrain, streams, and communities. Construction of concrete pads and other infrastructure for the wind turbine towers and roadways will add pollutants (e.g., concrete dust) into the water runoff that supplies water resources for local communities. More extensive areas are needed around forested sites of wind turbines, to reduce wildfire damage. For 600-foot towers with 500-foot blades, this would necessitate over a half-mile on either side of a ridgeline. Thus, for 30 wind turbines installed on a mountainous ridgelines, that could easily be 20 or more square miles of altered forestlands. This contrasts with wind farm turbines installed on flat farmlands in the central plans where the risk of uncontrolled forest fires is negligible, as is the spacing around the turbine towers which would be much reduced for alleviating this risk. Related to the last point, though wind turbines are often cited to have life-times of service close to 20 years, the failure rate of current wind turbines is very high; in some cases over 10% a year has been reported. With the newer, larger towers and turbines, there is little or no data on failure rates; given the new technology and the increased risk for larger structures to fail and to fail more catastrophically, it is short-sighted and irresponsible to surge ahead with installing these unproven turbines in a more at-risk environment such as forested surroundings where wildfires can be devastating. The large area sweep of the turbine blades (over 17 acres of sky area) would create a large, moving field on residents and communities of “shadow flicker”, a visually unsettling and unpleasant viewing of rapid shadow patterns. This area would be transmitted to even larger areas on the ground as the sun is positioned lower to the horizon. It would also move across the land as the sun rises and sets, effecting hundreds of acres of residential and commercial working spaces. This shadow flicker is much greater due to the elevated location of these towers and blades, whereas it is not as significant a factor for wind turbines on flatter terrain, such as the farmlands of the great-plains states, where the land territory of shadows will be much smaller. The sound heard by the whooshing of the turbine blades may have a detrimental effect on local residents and communities, as stated earlier. What is under-appreciated is that there is also an infrasonic, low soundwave generated by the blades, which are below the hearing threshold of people; it has an as-yet unknown effect on the levels of stress and health impairment on people and animals. This will require more extensive studies to assure that no acute or long-term health problems might be created by proximity to regular exposure. What is often glossed over is the hindrance to visual and aesthetic beauty that is provided by the natural mountains and ridgelines of the Appalachian Mountains. Many communities in these regions, particularly in West Virginia, thrive on eco-tourism, with visitors bringing in much needed revenue to support the many businesses that survive on this source of money. Having those natural mountains and ridgelines dominated, perhaps with towers as high or higher than the natural terrain, may have a highly detrimental effect upon eco-tourism dollars. It is often not stated that wind power is intermittent, and thus, is not an on-demand energy source. It either needs to be supplemented with existing on-demand energy sources (most often hydrocarbon-fueled power plants) or will need some sort of high-capacity energy storage system. The technology for energy storage is still in its infancy and under development, so wind power at this time is not a solution to provide power, but simply a supplement to existing energy-generating power plants. There has been little or no consideration for the decommissioning of towers and turbines after their installation. There should be well-documented plans for how and when decommissioning will be done and who will bear the costs. Because the costs of decommissioning such towers and turbines is very high, this aspect of the life-time of wind turbine installation is often downplayed by the big corporations that are now seeking to install wind power generation plants.