Both solar and wind energy do immense damage to the environment throughout their life cycle–mining of minerals, manufacturing processes, breakage events and eventual disposal. But they also cause damage during their operation. this has been well documented in the case of wind turbines, which kill millions of birds and bats and insects every year which disrupt normal atmospheric flows, which in the case of offshore turbines are harming ocean life. The Tonapah mirror solar facility, now shut down at enormous expense, was famous for frying thousands of birds. Regular panel-based farms are despoiling the landscape and often converting thousands of acres of fertile farmland into ugly wastelands of solar panels which by definition are off the majority of time, subject to storm damage, and very expensive to build and maintain. They also, it turns out, raise the temperature above them by several degrees, which also likely causes effects in the adjacent areas. As usual, these supposedly great ideas aren’t. (Cfact Post)
