TOMS RIVER, NJ – As New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy continues his fight to make offshore wind energy production a reality of the Jersey Shore coastline, he has a new ally in his war of information: Facebook.
Facebook, notorious for censoring supporters of Donald Trump, various opinions against the COVID-19 pandemic and response, vaccine information, and Hunter Biden’s laptop, is now adding wind energy misinformation to its arsenal of independent fact-checkers.
To date, Murphy’s wind energy agenda has been met with opposition as some claim the sonar mapping used to plan for the project disrupted the internal navigational sonar of whales and dolphins, causing a wave of beachings and dead marine mammals from winter 2022 through 2024.
Lately, Facebook has been censoring and fact-checking memes critical of wind energy and those who wish to discuss the possible links between offshore wind energy projects and a nearly ten-year increase in marine mammal strandings and deaths.
According to Facebook, it’s not about the whales.
In the wake of Earth Day celebrations numerous Facebook accounts propagated a meme with misleading claims about wind turbines’ efficiency and environmental impact. Contrary to the assertions that wind turbines consume more resources in their construction than they will ever generate, extensive research and expert opinions strongly refute these claims.
The meme, which inaccurately quotes Thomas Homer-Dixon, suggests that windmills could operate indefinitely without matching the energy invested in their creation. Homer-Dixon, a professor at the University of Waterloo, has publicly corrected this misinformation, clarifying that the misrepresented text was taken out of context from a book chapter he edited in 2009. The original text highlighted the importance of location in determining a windmill’s energy payback period, which, at a favorable site, could be as short as three years or less.
In Canada, where wind power contributes five percent to the national electricity generation, making it ninth in the world for wind power capacity, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) points out that a typical turbine can offset the emissions from its production within 6 to 18 months. Following this initial period, it can continue to produce clean electricity for 20 to 25 years.
Studies support the efficiency and sustainability of wind energy. A 2010 meta-analysis examining 50 studies on wind power’s net energy return found it to be more favorable compared to fossil fuels, nuclear, and solar power technologies. Similarly, a 2014 study on 2-megawatt wind turbines in the Pacific Northwest concluded that such turbines could net a positive energy return within five to eight months of operation.
CanmetENERGY-Ottawa’s Senior Wind Engineer, Tom Levy, confirmed that there are no known cases in Canada of wind turbines or farms failing to produce more power than was used for their construction. Furthermore, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has demonstrated that wind energy’s total emissions are significantly lower than those of fossil fuels, aligning it closely with other renewable energy sources.
These findings underscore the importance of fact-checking and highlight the misinformation surrounding wind energy. Wind turbines, when strategically placed, not only recoup their energy costs within a few months but also continue to supply clean, sustainable power for decades, debunking the myths perpetuated by social media memes.