WMOD00469

• Title: Environmental Impact of Large Windpower Farms
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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power is transmitted in the form of electrical energy over the
natiom"ide electric utility network to load centers. The Bureau IQf
Reclamation is currently planning the installation of a 100-MW
windfarm near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. If this one is successful,
much larger windfarms are likely to follow. On the other hand, it
now seems very un 1 i kely that wi ndpowered machi nes wi 11 prol iferatl~
in or near cities, even though they would then be handy to the loads
they would serve.

The map, Figure 1, shm"s potential ''Iindfarm sites that have been
i dentifi ed in a very prel imi nary manner in the 17 western states
where the Bureau of Reclamation operates one of the largest electric
util ity systems in the world. Several of these sites are broad gaps
in otherwise extensive mountain barriers, through which the wind
funnels. Several others are long r"idgelines that concentrate the
wind along their crests. A few of them are extensive plains in
particularly windswept locations. A few others are along coastlines
with predominatly onshore winds across a bluff shore, in effect a
special case combining the characteristics of a windswept plain and
a flow-concentrating ridgeline. With few exceptions, these candidate
sites are characterized by sparse population and undeveloped land.
It is obvious, then, that the environmental impacts of windpowered
generators congregated at large windfarms will be very different
from the impacts of the same machines proliferating in urban,
suburban, or even exurban settings. In fact, it is likely that the
impacts will depend more on the nature of the site than on the
nature of the machines themselves.

2. Current Assessment of Impacts

The Energy Research and Development Admi l1i strati on (no,,, incorporated
into the Department of Energy) identified the addressing of social
and environmental impacts on the widespread use of wind systems as
one objective of the Federal Wind Energy Program. It intended that
IIresearch will identify, quantify, tind work to ameliorate potential
adverse environmental and social impacts to meet the requirements of
the National Environmental Policy Act.1I That act established as
national policy that every major Federal action affecting the
envi ronment shall be preceded by assessment of its envi ronmental
impacts in order to lIencourage an enjoyable harmony between man and
his environment," fulfilling the respons.ibility of our generation as
trustees for the next and attaining beneficial uses of the environment
without undesirable consequences.

In pursuance of this objective, the Wind Systems Branch of ERDA was
funded for research on legal, social, and environmental issues in
the following amounts:

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