WIND FARM HARM

Regarding offshore wind farms (“In the wind”, March 4), many dead whales are turning up on America’s east coast and the cause of their demise could be the ocean wind farms along that coast. There are several fully operational ones and the Biden administration is now contemplating scores more farms along both the east and west coasts of the US.

Simultaneously, there are even greater numbers of dead whales turning up along the coastlines of Great Britain and the Netherlands, the common factor once again being ocean wind farms. There are scores of them in the North Sea.

According to physicist Axel Kleidon in the New Scientist and the Guardian, “It is a mistake to assume ocean wind farms are a renewable source of energy. Too many wind farms replacing fossil fuels seriously deplete the Earth’s energy available in the atmosphere with consequences as dire as severe climate change.”

He says also the noises

from the turbines and the high-impact machinery needed to lay the undersea pylons results in pollution to marine life over a wide area of the ocean floor, and more specifically, affect the sonar ability of both dolphins and whales. This is precisely what is happening in the North Sea.

On top of all that marine carnage, an estimated 3650 gulls, 4400 gannets and an undisclosed number of puffins perish annually from collisions with the fast-moving wind turbine blades. This is relevant to New Zealand as plans are discussed here for developing offshore wind farms.

Gary Hollis

(Mellons Bay, Auckland)