Do Wind Turbines Cause Cancer? 6 Myths of Renewable Energy

On April 2nd of this year [2019], during a speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that "the noise (from windmills) causes cancer." Can this be true? An in-depth, 2015 Australian government study investigated the potential health effects of people living near windmills and found that cancer was undoubtedly not an issue and that "more evidence was needed to establish a link to any illness."

President Trump isn't the first to spread misinformation regarding the necessary transition towards renewable and sustainable energies. The fossil fuel industry has been at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and, in many ways, has made modern-day civilization possible. Our reliance on concentrated, ancient sunlight (as fossil fuels are often referred to) has given humanity a burst of energy which has essentially allowed us to exert our technological influence. Despite the increasingly clear evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is leading us towards an unprecedented ecological collapse, the sense of control and dominion over the natural world that fossil fuels have given us has made it difficult for many sectors of the population to accept the needed conversion to more sustainable sources of energy.

Economically speaking, the roughly 1,500 oil and gas firms registered on stock exchanges worldwide have a combined worth of around $4.65 trillion. The amount of vested economic interest in fossil fuels has also led to several blatantly false accusations and indictments against renewable energies that challenge the financial hegemony of the fossil fuel industries. Below, we attempt to dispel six of the most oft-repeated myths related to renewable energy solutions.

Myth #1: Renewable Energy is a Diminutive and Irrelevant Part of our National Electricity Grid 

In the United States, fossil fuels continue to be our primary source of energy. Even though a residential solar panel system is being installed every two and a half minutes somewhere in the United States, around 80 percent of the energy consumed in the United States comes from fossil fuel sources. Due to this fact, many people assume that renewable energy is an irrelevant part of our national energy grid that is only accessible by wealthy homeowners.

In fact, in places like California, 20 percent of energy now comes from renewable sources, and that figure continues to grow on a year-by-year basis. The International Energy Agency estimates that "renewables will have the fastest growth in the electricity sector, providing almost 30% of power demand in 2023, up from 24% in 2017. During this period, renewables are forecast to meet more than 70% of global electricity generation growth, led by solar photovoltaic (PV) and followed by wind, hydropower, and bioenergy." These growth statistics show that renewables will continue to become an ever more important source of the energy we depend on.

Myth #2: Renewable Energy is Overly Expensive 

Another major myth associated with renewable energy sources is that they are too expensive to be deployed on a massive scale. While natural gas continues to be the cheapest energy option in most of the United States, renewables continue to drop in price rapidly. One recent report by Forbes finds that onshore wind farms can produce electricity for as low as $0.04 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while solar photovoltaic energy costs are down to $0.10 per kilowatt-hour kWh. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) finds that all renewable energy options will be economically competitive with fossil fuels by 2020.

In some areas of the country, transitioning to renewables will even save customers money. Over a decade ago, New York State determined that a 10 percent increase in local wind generation could reduce customer energy payments by over $300 million per year.

Myth #3: Renewable Energy is Unreliable and Unable to be Deployed on a Large Scale

One of the main challenges with solar and wind energy is that these renewable energies cannot be produced on-demand, as with fossil fuel sources of energy. Solar energy is only produced when the sun shines, and Eolic energy is only when the wind blows. However, countries like Costa Rica, where over 98 percent of energy comes from renewable sources, show that large-scale deployment of renewable energy is undoubtedly possible, especially when hydroelectric and geothermal energy options are included in the mix.