Chapter5, Ksiązki, WIND ENERGY - THE FACTS

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WIND ENERGY - THE FACTS
PART V
ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES
Acknowledgements
Josep Prats Ecotecnia, European Wind Energy
Technology Platform
Manuela de Lucas Estación Biológica de Doñana
(CSIC)
Part V was compiled by Carmen Lago, Ana Prades,
Yolanda Lechón and Christian Oltra of CIEMAT, Spain;
Angelika Pullen of GWEC; Hans Auer of the Energy
Economics Group, University of Vienna.
We would like to thank all the peer reviewers for
their valuable advice and for the tremendous effort
that they put into the revision of Part V.
Part V was carefully reviewed by the following
experts:
Glória Rodrigues
European Wind Energy Association
Claus Huber
EGL
Daniel Mittler
Greenpeace
John Coequyt
Sierra Club
Yu Jie
Heinrich Boell Foundation, China
John Twidell
Editor of the international journal
‘Wind Engineering’, AMSET Center
Patrik Söderholm
Lulea University of Technology
Maarten Wolsink
University of Amsterdam,
Amsterdam Study Centre for the
Metropolitan Environment AME
António Sá da
APREN
Costa
Paulis Barons
Latvian Wind Energy Association
PART V
INTRODUCTION
The energy sector greatly contributes to climate
change and atmospheric pollution. In the EU, 80 per
cent of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) come from
this sector (European Environment Agency, 2008).
The 2008 European Directive promoting renewable
energy sources recognises their contribution to climate
change mitigation through the reduction of GHGs.
Renewable energies are also much more sustainable
than conventional power sources. In addition, they can
help provide a more secure supply of energy, they can
be competitive economically, and they can be both
regional and local. Wind energy is playing an important
role in helping nations reach Kyoto Protocol targets.
The 97 GW of wind energy capacity installed at the end
of 2007 will save 122 million tonnes of CO
2
every year
(GWEC, 2008), helping to combat climate change.
Wind energy is a clean and environmentally friendly
technology that produces electricity. Its renewable
character and the fact it does not pollute during the
operational phase makes it one of the most promising
energy systems for reducing environmental problems at
both global and local levels. However, wind energy, like
any other industrial activity, may cause impacts on the
environment which should be analysed and mitigated.
The possible implications of wind energy development
may be analysed from different perspectives and views.
Accordingly, this part covers the following topics:
environmental beneﬁ ts and impacts;
along the entire chain, from raw materials acquisition
through production, use and disposal, provides a global
picture determining where the most polluting stages of
the cycle can be detected. The general categories of
environmental impacts considered in LCA are resource
use, human health and ecological consequences.
Focusing on the local level, the environmental
impacts of wind energy are frequently site-speciﬁ c and
thus strongly dependent on the location selected for
the wind farm installation.
Wind energy has a key role to play in combating cli-
mate change by reducing CO
2
emissions from power
generation. The emergence of international carbon
markets, which were spurred by the ﬂ exible mecha-
nisms introduced by the Kyoto Protocol as well as
various regional emissions trading schemes such as
the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme
(EU ETS), could eventually provide an additional incen-
tive for the development and deployment of renewable
energy technologies and speciﬁ cally wind energy.
Chapter V.3 pinpoints the potential of wind energy in
reducing CO
2
emissions from the power sector, gives
an overview of the development of international carbon
markets, assesses the impact of Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) on
wind energy, and outlines the path towards a post-
2012 climate regime.
Wind energy is not only a favourable electricity gen-
eration technology that reduces emissions (of other
pollutants as well as CO
2
, SO
2
and NO
x
), it also avoids
signiﬁ cant amounts of external costs of conventional
fossil fuel-based electricity generation. However, at
present electricity markets do not include external
effects and/or their costs. It is therefore important to
identify the external effects of different electricity
generation technologies and then to monetise the
related external costs. Then it is possible to compare
the external costs with the internal costs of electric-
ity, and to compare competing energy systems, such
as conventional electricity generation technologies
and wind energy. Chapters V.4 and V.5 present the
•
policy measures to combat climate change;
•
externalities; and
•
social acceptance and public opinion.
•
Environmental beneﬁ ts of wind energy will be
assessed in terms of the avoided environmental
impacts compared to energy generation from other
technologies. In order to compute these avoided envi-
ronmental impacts, the life-cycle assessment (LCA)
methodology has been used. LCA, described in the
international standards series ISO 14040-44, accounts
for the impacts from all the stages implied in the wind
farm cycle. The analysis of the environmental impacts
310
WIND ENERGY - THE FACTS -
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
results of the empirical analyses of the avoided emis-
sions and avoided external costs due to the replace-
ment of conventional fossil fuel-based electricity
generation by wind energy in each of the EU27 Member
States (as well as at aggregated EU-27 level) for 2007
as well as for future projections of conventional elec-
tricity generation and wind deployment (EWEA sce-
narios) in 2020 and 2030.
Wind energy, being a clean and renewable energy, is
traditionally linked to strong and stable public support.
Experience in the implementation of wind projects in
the EU shows that social acceptance is crucial for the
successful development of wind energy. Understanding
the divergence between strong levels of general sup-
port towards wind energy and local effects linked to
speciﬁ c wind developments has been a key challenge
for researchers. Consequently, social research on wind
energy has traditionally focused on two main areas: the
assessment of the levels of public support for wind
energy (by means of opinion polls) and the identiﬁ ca-
tion and understanding of the dimensions underlying
the social aspects at the local level (by means of case
studies), both onshore and offshore.
Chapter V.5, on the social acceptance of wind
energy and wind farms, presents the key ﬁ ndings from
the most recent research in this regard, in light of the
latest and most comprehensive formulations to the
concept of ‘social acceptance’ of energy innovations.
V.1
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS
It is widely recognised that the energy sector has
a negative inﬂ uence on the environment. All the
processes involved in the whole energy chain (raw
materials procurement, conversion to electricity and
electricity use) generate environmental burdens that
affect the atmosphere, the water, the soil and living
organisms. Environmental burdens can be deﬁ ned as
everything producing an impact on the public, the envi-
ronment or ecosystems. The most important burdens
derived from the production and uses of energy are:
greenhouse gases;
to deﬁ ne more environmentally respectful national and
international policies. For all these reasons, the use of
suitable methodologies capable of quantifying in a
clear and comparable way the environmental impacts
becomes essential.
This chapter describes the LCA methodology and,
based on relevant European studies, shows the emis-
sions and environmental impacts derived from electri-
city production from onshore and offshore wind farms
throughout the whole life cycle. Also, the avoided
emissions and environmental impacts achieved by
wind electricity compared to the other fossil electri-
city generation technologies have been analysed.
•
particles and other pollutants released into the
•
atmosphere;
liquid wastes discharges on water and/or soil; and
•
The Concept of Life-Cycle Assessment
solid wastes.
•
However, not all energy sources have the same neg-
ative environmental effects or natural resources deple-
tion capability. Fossil fuel energies exhaust natural
resources and are mostly responsible for environmen-
tal impacts. On the other hand, renewable energies in
general, and wind energy in particular, produce signiﬁ -
cantly lower environmental impacts than conventional
energies.
Ecosystems are extremely complex entities, includ-
ing all living organisms in an area (biotic factors)
together with its physical environment (abiotic fac-
tors). Thus the speciﬁ c impact of a substance on the
various components of the ecosystem is particularly
difﬁ cult to assess, as all potential relationships should
be addressed. This is the role of impact assessments:
the identiﬁ cation and quantiﬁ cation of the effects
produced by pollutants or burdens on different ele-
ments of the ecosystem. It is important because only
those impacts that can be quantiﬁ ed can be compared
and reduced.
Results from an environmental impact assessment
could be used to reduce the environmental impacts in
energy systems cycles. Also, those results should
allow the design of more sustainable energy techno-
logies, and provide clear and consistent data in order
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is an objective process
to evaluate the environmental burdens associated
with a product, process or activity by identifying
energy and materials used and wastes released to
the environment and to evaluate and implement
opportunities to effect environmental improvements
(ISO, 1999).
The assessment includes the entire life cycle of the
product, process or activity, encompassing extracting
and processing raw materials; manufacturing, trans-
portation and distribution; use, reuse and mainte-
nance; recycling; and ﬁ nal disposal (the so-called
‘cradle to grave’ concept).
According to the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards,
an LCA is carried out in four phases:
1. goal and scope deﬁ nition;
2. inventory analysis: compiling the relevant inputs
and outputs of a product system;
3. impact assessment: evaluating the potential envi-
ronmental impacts associated with those inputs
and outputs; and
4. interpretation: the procedure to identify, qualify,
check and evaluate the results of the inventory
analysis and impact assessment phases in relation
to the objectives of the study.
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