Wind power, Upwind Norway | Renewable Norway’s disinformation

Board game enthusiast Thor Egil Braadland is the new government contact (lobbyist) in Fornybar Norge. He writes with self-appointed authority and arrogance in Norwegian newspapers about how those who oppose wind power spread myths. In doing so, he also undermines the opinion of half of the population who are against wind power.

Braadland’s campaign post in Lokalavisa Trysil Engerdal which was published on 1 May, and which is now being spread across the country, must be seen as pure disinformation due to everything he omits to mention and the false impression he gives of wind power.

Land use

Braadland tries to convince us that all the wind power plants in Norway take up only 20 km2. In other words, Fornybar Norge believes that we are in untouched nature when we stand 100 m out in the heather and look up at a more than 200 m high noisy, flashing and spinning wind turbine.

The plan area used for the 64 wind power plants in Norway is a whopping 600 km2, but the area that is harnessed is even much larger. Noise-laden area that is unsuitable for both housing and recreation is over 1,000 km2 – approx. half of Vestfold county.

Braadland also tries to compare Blåsjø with wind power plants. But Blåsjø doesn’t make noise, doesn’t flash day and night, doesn’t cast shadows, doesn’t grind birds to death, etc. Blåsjø is our largest perennial reservoir for hydropower – in other words, a huge battery. Compared to Tesla batteries, some believe that Blåsjø can be worth up to four times the oil fund. So how much are Braadland’s 2,000 wind turbines worth? Hardly anything special – at least if you are to judge by Swedish studies of profitability.

Unstable power

Braadland claims that wind turbines produce almost all the time, but anyone who follows a wind farm will see that there is almost always someone standing. Since the effect from a wind turbine varies with the third power of the wind speed, production increases sharply with the wind strength. At 4 m/second wind, a spinning wind turbine only produces “enough to make coffee”. Depending on the model and location, a wind turbine only produces electricity equivalent to what it would have produced in 3 to 4 out of 12 months assuming it was producing at full capacity all the time.

Microplastics

Braadland claims that a wind turbine loses only 200 grams of mass each year. The wind turbines service the wings approx. every four years and the service industry for wings is a billion dollar industry. It’s pretty ridiculous to think that they spend that much money and lost production to replace 800 grams of wear on a turbine, less than a can of paint, every four years.

Due to the wind industry’s reluctance to provide data, there is great uncertainty about how much toxic plastic and epoxy products are worn by the wings and end up in nature. What is absolutely certain is that the number is much higher than 200 grams. This is yet another example of how Fornybar Norge’s arguments often fail even the simplest logic test.

Power surplus

Braadland is then trying to scare us into believing that the power surplus, which NVE says is 20 TWh, may disappear in 2028. It is of course conceivable if Statnett is allowed to continue uncritically and without clear criteria to distribute access to power in the east and west in large amounts of 2 – 5% of the entire country’s power supply. There is now a completely senseless waste of power that is offered to data centers and hydrogen and ammonia factories that create almost no jobs or value for society.

Any power deficit will be self-inflicted damage as a result of a failed energy policy without management. Why would municipalities want to sacrifice nature, open air areas and public health to cover such a senseless waste of power – society’s most important input factor?

“It’s going to go just fine,” assures lobbyist Braadland – as if this were just a board game. It is, of course, “his sick mother” Braadland is crying for: the wind power industry is unable to get the wind power projects approved because the population has long since realized that wind power entails a number of disadvantages that Braadland and his colleagues do not like to talk about.

Renewable Norway should choose whether they want to be perceived as a serious organization – or whether they want to continue producing false narratives on a conveyor belt as Braadland does.