The Environmental Cost of Pretending Wind and Solar Have No Environmental Cost
The Natural Resources Council of Maine recently published an article discussing the environmental impacts of energy production.
They’re right about one thing: every source of energy has environmental impacts.
What they’re wrong about is pretending wind and solar don’t.
For years, Mainers have been told that covering mountains with turbines, clearing forests, building transmission corridors across the state, and subsidizing massive renewable projects was necessary to save the planet.
But now the assumptions behind that entire agenda are starting to fall apart.
The 65% Lie
For years, ISO-New England used a winter capacity value of 65% for onshore wind in transmission planning.
That number helped justify billions of dollars in renewable mandates, subsidies, and transmission projects.
Now ISO has revisited the exact same data and come to a very different conclusion.
The real number isn’t 65%.
It’s 10%.
Let that sink in.
The Northern Maine Renewable Energy Project is expected to bring roughly 1,200 MW of new wind generation onto the grid. To support it, ratepayers are expected to fund approximately 111 miles of transmission infrastructure capable of carrying that power.
But under ISO’s revised planning assumptions, that same wind fleet may provide only about 120 MW during winter peak demand—the very moment Mainers need electricity most.
Not 1,200.
One hundred and twenty.
That’s not a minor adjustment.
That’s a fundamental challenge to the narrative used to justify these projects in the first place.
The Environmentalists’ Blind Spot
Environmental groups spend enormous amounts of time discussing the impacts of natural gas pipelines.
They’re strangely quiet about:
-Thousands of acres of forest clearing.
-Wildlife habitat fragmentation.
-Mountain blasting and industrial roads.
-Massive transmission corridors.
-Rare earth mineral mining.
-Destruction of farmland.
-Lithium mining.
-Solar panel disposal.
-Wind turbine blade disposal.
Apparently environmental impacts only count when they’re politically convenient.
The truth is simple: wind and solar are not impact-free. They merely shift those impacts to different places and hide them behind the word “renewable.”
Reliability Matters
Electricity isn’t useful when it’s available only when weather conditions cooperate.
Hospitals need power during ice storms.
Families need heat on the coldest winter nights.
Businesses need electricity when demand is highest.
That’s why every renewable-heavy grid still depends on dispatchable generation.
In New England, that means natural gas.
The dirty secret of the renewable movement is that wind and solar don’t eliminate the need for natural gas.
They depend on it.
The Energy Source Environmentalists Should Love
If the goal is reducing emissions while minimizing land use, environmental organizations should be championing nuclear power.
Instead, many continue opposing it.
Nuclear produces enormous amounts of reliable, carbon-free electricity using a tiny fraction of the land required by wind and solar.
It operates more than 90% of the time.
It doesn’t depend on the weather.
It doesn’t require vast landscapes of turbines and panels.
Yet somehow nuclear is treated as the villain while industrializing forests and mountain ridges is marketed as environmental stewardship.
Following the Incentives
There is another reality worth considering.
For decades, environmental organizations built their influence, fundraising, and political power around the urgency of climate change.
As more Americans begin asking questions about affordability, reliability, and the true costs of renewable mandates, many of those organizations have every incentive to keep the crisis narrative alive.
After all, if the public starts questioning the premise, they might start questioning the policies too.
And if the 65% assumption can become 10%, what else deserves a second look?
Reality Matters
The choice isn’t between energy sources with impacts and energy sources without impacts.
That choice doesn’t exist.
The real question is which energy sources provide the most reliable power with the least overall environmental and economic harm.
Natural gas keeps the lights on.
Nuclear provides massive amounts of carbon-free electricity on a tiny footprint.
Wind and solar are not the miracle technologies their advocates promised.
And after ISO-New England’s stunning revision from 65% to 10%, Mainers should be asking whether our energy policy has been built on sound engineering—or wishful thinking.
Because families struggling to pay their electric bills can’t afford to subsidize fantasies.
They need reality.
Realities of Fossil Fuels vs. Wind, Solar and Batteries
1. Solar panels, wind turbines and batteries (w/s/b) do not magically appear out of thin air. A lot of fossil fuels are burned to produce them for mining/processing of raw materials in multiple countries around the world (many with little to no environmental controls or labor laws), transport to/from manufacturing facility, coal powered fabrication process mostly in China, site preparation, life cycle maintenance and ultimate decommissioning and disposal – with the disposal component another looming environmental disaster. Each step requires the use of very heavy fossil fuel powered machinery given that neither wind or solar can produce enough energy to power the machinery used to produce them. Wind and solar are 100% dependent on fossil fuels from cradle to grave. They don’t replace fossil fuels, they only increase the need for them. https://manhattan.institute/article/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-a-reality-check
2. Wind turbines and solar panels ONLY generate electricity, but CANNOT make any of the products or transportation fuels that get made from fossil fuels that support:
· Hospitals
· Airports
· Militaries
· Medical equipment
· Telecommunications
· Communications systems
· Space programs
· Appliances
· Electronics
· Sanitation systems (water/sewage treatment)
· Heating and ventilating
· Transportation – vehicles, rail, ocean, and air
· Construction – roads and buildings
3. Fossil fuels are also used to produce synthetic fertilizers which greatly enhance crop production. Oil derivatives are also the basis for over 6000 products used in everyday life. In effect, there is not one thing in our lives that we eat, drink, wear, walk on, use or otherwise consume that is not 100% dependent on fossil fuels. https://www.americaoutloud.news/modern-society-runs-on-refined-oil-products-can-california-keep-ignoring-reality/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
4. Wind turbines and solar panels require orders of magnitude more area than fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. For example, the 1200 MW nameplate Bridge City gas plant in Texas sits on about 26 acres and generates electricity 24x7x365. The Blevins 270 MW nameplate solar complex sits on 2300 acres (over 3.5 square miles) or 88 times larger than Bridge City with a nameplate capacity less than 1 quarter. To get to the same nameplate capacity, Blevins would be over 15 square miles or 352 times the gas plant. Capacity factors for solar vary by location, but roughly 25% is the maximum capacity factor (in New England, it is far less). Therefore, for the solar plant to produce the same amount of electricity as the gas plant, 4 times the land area for solar equivalent nameplate is required – or over 60 square miles or 1408 times the land required for the gas plant. And the solar complex still does not generate any electricity from dusk to dawn so another power source is still required. In fact, solar only produces at name plate from 10-2 during the time of the year when the sun is directly overhead on clear cloudless days where the temps don't exceed 77 degrees. https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/sunblock-the-global-fight-to-save and https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/a-few-graphs-say-it-all-for-renewables/
5. Utility scale lithium-ion batteries require an enormous amount of raw materials and consume an enormous amount of energy to produce. For example, 1-ton utility-scale battery has a storage capacity of around 100 kWh and requires ~ 70 tons of mined and processed raw materials to be manufactured. This is the energy equivalent of about ~40 kg of coal or ~20 litres of oil. That battery would power all of Berlin for about 30 minutes (assuming 2 GW peak power) or all of Germany for just under a minute (at peak power of 80 GW). To produce that battery requires 450 GWh of energy just to be manufactured including the energy required for metals and materials. That’s ~450 times more energy input than its rated storage capacity. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/20/the-battery-storage-delusion-what-35-million-tons-of-industrial-effort-buys-you/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRpnn9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeHMU38LwTM8mQRlrJLdDqV90CRWD7akOxhsxc2cY66QDDhIQgQEKHkfxUWpw_aem_bCX9MXNBoCOqLA0tLTRrpQ
6. The Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is the most cited metric for comparing w/s/b costs to fossil fuels and nuclear and purports to show that wind and solar are less expensive. However, LCOE ignores natural capacity factors, storage and backup costs, and system integration/infrastructure expenses. A more appropriate measure is FCOE (Full Cost of Electricity) which includes all the invisible infrastructure required to make wind, solar, and batteries “work.” FCOE clearly shows that wind and solar are far more expensive than fossil fuels or nuclear. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/06/why-is-cheap-electricity-so-dmn-expensive/
7. Data shows that wind and solar life spans are far shorter than advertised meaning that they will need to be replaced more frequently or discarded earlier than projected adding to the effective operating and disposal cost. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/wind-turbines-and-solar-panels-are-aging-prematurely/
8. Contrary to the claims re: social costs of carbon, fossil fuels have enabled people to live longer, healthier, more comfortable lives. Infant mortality dropped. Women didn’t die in childbirth at the same rates. Food became more plentiful, clean water more reliable, heat more accessible, and medical care more effective. Nearly every measurable improvement in human well-being since 1850 can be traced back to the power of coal, oil, and natural gas. And no matter how fervently activists try to paint fossil fuels as the villain in their climate morality play, they remain the reason billions are alive and thriving today. https://irrationalfear.substack.com/p/how-fossil-fuels-doubled-human-life?r=kv2ig&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_id=97757_v0_s00_e232_tv2_tp1_a1demoo4qyk3vl&fbclid=IwY2xjawRpnzlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe4E1t_0avKJ45hpsLQPy68BJ9rODii59ASCFxIKW_ZEsygJROjtjSRC2REGY_aem_ih7XgBUNFCMh7yVv5HkHpA
Transitioning from fossil fuels to wind, solar and batteries is a physical impossibility and the push to do so will result in serious economic and environmental damage while posing a serious threat to national security. https://manhattan.institute/article/the-energy-transition-delusion and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/27/bright-green-impossibilities/
Beautiful post, highly synthetical. I was just posting the exact same concept. I just produced award winning short film Green Bordello (link below) and am setting up youtube channel "Green Bordello Channel". Good work.
https://youtu.be/6ljXhq-anT0?is=GPPzsmKjuemcNa-y
and a few papers on climatic impacts of wind turbines.
https://www.exploretuscia.com/transizione-energetica-clima-e-ambiente-studi/