Trump Again Overblows Risks of Wind Power
In an Aug. 30 rally in Evansville, Indiana, President Donald Trump made three unsubstantiated claims about wind turbines, which he calls “windmills”:
- Trump suggested that a single turbine can be responsible for “thousands” of bird deaths. Birds are killed by turbines, but the real death toll from a single turbine is orders of magnitude lower than this. A 2013 study estimated an average of just over five bird deaths per turbine per year.
- He repeatedly referred to “problems” when the wind doesn’t blow. It’s true that lack of wind prevents turbines from generating energy, but these pauses do not create problems that power grid operators can’t handle.
- Trump also stated that living near turbines is noisy, enough to make someone “go crazy after a couple of years.” Studies indicate that people living near turbines are rarely exposed to average sound levels beyond 45 decibels, which is akin to the hum of a refrigerator. There is no direct evidence that the sound is detrimental to physical or mental health, although it may be annoying to some people.
While each of these claims start with a kernel of truth, Trump’s words misrepresent scientists’ and engineers’ current understanding of wind power and its limitations. We’ll tackle each statement individually, but first, here are his full comments on wind power from his rally:
Trump, Aug. 30: Clean power, right? They want to have windmills all over the place, right? When the wind doesn’t blow, what do we do? Uh, we got problems. When there’s thousands of birds laying at the base of
