Resources for debunking common solar and wind myths

Posted on 10 June 2024 by Guest Author

This is a repost from a Yale Climate Connections article by SueEllen Campbell published on June 3, 2024. The articles listed can help you tell fact from fiction when it comes to solar and wind energy.

Some statements you hear about solar and wind energy are just plain false. Some are a little bit true but so unbalanced, incomplete, and out of context that they might as well be false. And some tap into genuine complexities. When the facts are complicated, nuanced, mutable, or otherwise hard to pin down, statements may mislead (both deliberately and accidentally) by oversimplification. 

The links below are primarily about the first two categories, that is, wholly or mostly false statements. 

Myths about wind and solar

• “Do wind turbines kill birds? Are solar panels toxic? The truth behind green-energy debates.” Elizabeth Weise, USA Today. A good, brief introduction to a handful of common myths, not just the two in the headline, and a story about how they play out in a community debate.
• “We fact-checked President Trump’s dubious claims on the perils of wind power.” Brad Plumer, New York Times. Excellent overview of myths about whales, cancer, other health issues, property values, and power outages. 
• “Wind energy myths.” U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Another good overview, including several more complex questions. 

No, wind turbines aren’t noisy.

No, wind turbines aren’t major bird killers. 

• “How many birds do wind farms kill?” Hannah Ritchie, Sustainability by Numbers. Statistics guru Ritchie explains how hard it is to get good numbers for this question, points out that we can reduce these deaths, and concludes that since 1970, wind turbines have caused just a tenth as many bird deaths as have communication towers — and far, far fewer than buildings or (staggeringly lethal) cats. 
• “Painting wind turbine blades to prevent bird collisions.” Will Walkey, Wyoming Public Media and Science Friday. Text and audio.
• “A summary and comparison of bird mortality from anthropogenic causes with an emphasis on collisions.” Wallace P. Erickson, Gregory D. Johnson, and David P. Young, Jr., U.S. Forest Service. This detailed scientific overview concludes that wind turbines cause less than one-hundredth of 1% of these deaths; see the last page for an illuminating table.
• “Impact scorecard 2021.” American Bird Conservancy. See page 14 for numbers and comparisons.

No, wind turbines don’t kill whales.

No, wind turbines don’t cause cancer.

Perhaps because rooftop solar panels are now so widespread, there are fewer myths about this kind of energy. Typically ignoring comparative contexts, they lean toward anxiety about large solar arrays and other large-scale effects. For instance:

Q: How destructive is mining for solar panel components? A: Significantly less destructive than mining for fossil fuels.

No, solar panels don’t cause cancer.

No, ordinary hail won’t destroy your solar panels. (Really big hail — more than two inches across — might.) 

No, solar farms aren’t destroying the best agricultural lands.

On waste from wind and solar power — compared to (much more, and more toxic) waste from fossil fuel power: 

Finally, a concise but comprehensive note on intermittency (What happens when there’s no wind and no sun?), a topic too big to cover here: “Three myths about renewable energy and the grid, debunked.” Amory B. Lovins and M. V. Ramana, Yale Environment 360.